COVER STORY
Right: An electronic lathe,
which is used for machining
screws, crowns, pinions and
other “turned” components
at Franck Muller.
SIHH, Franck Muller puts on its own salon at its picture-postcard
headquarters, the aptly named Watchland.
That the eponymous watchmaking house has now reached the
quarter-century mark seems a good reason to have a peek into its
factories and look at just what Franck Muller Watchland is capable
of doing in-house.
By way of an overview, Franck Muller can make watches
pretty much all on its own. There are a few aspects of its production that are outsourced to external suppliers, but these are the
most tertiary of elements, among them sapphire crystals, ruby jewels and straps. The real innards and caseworks of a Franck Muller
watch—including, according to the group, the crucial escapement—come from one of several Franck Muller-owned factories
that dot the French-speaking countryside of Switzerland and the
urban environs of Geneva.
In the days immediately following the Baselworld Fair, as
many of my colleagues were heading back home to file deadlines,
I boarded a train bound for Geneva for the purpose of touring three
of Franck Muller’s factories. The first, a nondescript warehouse-like
machining shop near the airport on the outskirts of the city, in
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WRISTWATCH | 2016
Meyrin, responsible for producing the countless small metal
components vital to mechanical
watchmaking; the second, a state
of the art atelier in the tony suburb of Genthod, where many of
the most skill-intensive manufacturing procedures, including the
assembly of high-complications,
are carried out; and lastly, in the northern vicinity of La Chaux-deFonds, a factory responsible for producing all Franck Muller dials.
MACHINING IN MEYRIN
On arriving in Geneva, I met with my hosts and drove to the
Meyrin site in order to see where a large percentage of Franck
Muller movement and case components originate. This nondescript
location is actually part of a large industrial park that plays host
to various other manufacturing activities besides watchmaking.
Meyrin is also home to the main site of the CERN particle physics
laboratory, aka the large hadron collider. Not only is the Geneva region ground zero for luxury watchmaking; it’s also the most centrally
important research site for international physics.
The Franck Muller Meyrin facility is presided over by Mr.
Jean-Marc Catala, an amiable workshop manager who directs the
production of pinions, wheels, levers, plates, bridges and cases for
Franck Muller watches. An especial focus of the Meyrin facility is