Everything
When architecture and horological artistry converge: the new Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon Poinçon de Genève Sapphire Frank Gehry from Louis Vuitton is deserving of its rather wordy name and title. The new timepiece serves as something of a wearable timecapsule of the collaborative history between the infamously challenging post-modern architect and the French Maison, mirroring two of Gehry’s most iconic edifices—the Fondation Louis Vuitton and the Louis Vuitton Maison Seoul—in both spirit and form.
The latest addition to the Louis Vuitton High Watchmaking collection, the Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon Poinçon de Genève Sapphire Frank Gehry is a dialogue of parts. First part, Gehry’s own architectural language and second part his own collaborative history with the French Maison. Encased in sapphire, a material second only to diamond in hardness, the watch’s transparency is a nod to Gehry’s penchant for playing with light and space. Drawing inspiration from the natural motion of sails against the wind, Gehry has imbued the new with a sense of perpetual movement, an homage to his lifelong fascination with the maritime world.
Sculpting the dial from a monolithic sapphire block, an endeavour that stretched over 250 meticulous hours, stands as a testament to La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton’s mastery over their craft. Gehry’s architectural motifs find resonance in the dial’s intricate textures, achieved through precision tools typically reserved for the medical field. This meticulous process ensures that each glance at the watch reveals a new interplay of light and shadow, mirroring the dynamic essence of Gehry’s structures.
The watch’s heart—a flying tourbillon movement—embodies technical brilliance and aesthetic harmony, certified by the Poinçon de Genève, a hallmark of excellence in watchmaking. This intricate core, visible through the sapphire, performs a silent ballet, its every motion a reminder of the symbiosis between form and function.
Function, as ever with Gehry, remains something to be played with. Pragmatism be damned in the process. The Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon Poinçon de Genève Sapphire Frank Gehry invites onlookers to perceive time not just in hours and minutes, but as a fluid continuum, much like Gehry’s buildings that defy the rigidity of urban landscapes.
Perhaps Gehry had been casually reading Heraclitus’ philosophies on time in the lead up to creating this, desiring to capture an “everlasting flux of becoming.” Regardless, a stunning watch that delights the eye as much as tells the time.
