iW Magazine Winter 2019 | Page 90

Uwe Ahrendt AMONG THE ELEVEN WATCH COMPANIES THAT CALL THE TINY PICTURESQUE GERMAN VILLAGE OF GLASHÜTTE HOME, PERHAPS THE MOST DISTINCTIVE IS NOMOS GLASHÜTTE. By Anthony DeMarco VISITING NOMOS GLASHÜTTE Inside Nomos Berlinerblau FOUNDED BY ROLAND SCHWERTNER IN JANUARY 1990 just two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nomos specializes in manual and automatic in-house movements with useful complications and clean, Bauhaus-inspired dial designs. What makes this combination of mechanical prowess and fine design even more impressive is that even with the typical Nomos watch made primarily in-house, they remain priced between $1,000 and $4,000. During a recent two-day trip, I visited the Nomos operations in Glashütte and in Berlin, where the company’s watch designs are created. In Glashütte, Nomos is situated in three low-rise buildings: the company’s main office in a renovated former train station for its business operations, a building dedicated to movement production and the “chronometry” building where the watches are assembled. SWING SYSTEM In 2014, Nomos unveiled its own in-house escapement, known as the Nomos swing system. With this invention, the company “declared its independence” from the Swiss watch industry, as it no longer had 90 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | WINTER 2019 The view of Glashutte from the Chronometry Building to purchase its escapements from an outside manufacturer (with the exception of the escapement spring). This new manufacturing facility is how Nomos put this independence into practice. The one-story facility is specifically designed to take in large bundles of raw materials and turn them into tiny movement parts. It is a machine-based operation with human supervision where lathes, milling tools, drills and other specialized equipment produce about 160 caliber parts for its watches. Among the parts: balance wheels, pinion screws, plates, bridges and the gear train, which was developed with the assistance of the nearby technical university, TU Dresden. Having an automated movement production facility in house guarantees consistency in the mass production of its calibers, says Uwe Ahrendt, Nomos CEO. He adds that Nomos is by far the largest producer of watches in Glashütte (though the privately held company doesn’t release its figures). “Having an understanding of the whole production process helps us to stick to our price range,” he says. “It was a huge challenge, especially after investing all the money into the swing system and all the in-house technology for the movement manufacturer. But iWMAGAZINE .COM