COVER STORY
Watchmakers in Genthod assemble watches of varying levels of
complexity, and critical finishing procedures and quality control measures
are also performed at Watchland.
Most of the rooms have the quintessential calm and quiet that one would
associate with Swiss watchmaking—
you could hear a pin drop. There is, however, a small amount of
machining going on at the facility. For the most part, though, this
relates to the more expensive tier of components such as gold and
platinum cases and the like.
DIALS IN LES BOIS
The video is played back in slow motion to see how adjustments ought to be made. The escapement is far too fast to be
regulated using conventional methods, and so a little out-of-thebox thinking was in order. (I had never seen such a commonplace
consumer product employed for a speciali zed horological purpose,
but it does make perfect sense. Cell phone cameras have certainly
come a long way since I began my career reporting on fine timepieces in 2005!)
48
WRISTWATCH | 2016
Approximately two hours drive north of Geneva, in the Jura
region of Switzerland bordering France, is a town called Les Bois,
which quite literally means “the woods.” It’s an apt place-name
given the relative seclusion of the town and the region. The Jurassic
Period takes its name from the Jura Mountains, where many early
excavations found dinosaur fossils dating from that time. But WristWatch readers are more likely to know the Jura for its enormous
contributions to the field of watchmaking. If Geneva is the “cite du
temps,” then the Jura is time’s countryside.