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
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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
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