The History of Urban Jürgensen, The Legendary Danish Watchmaker Set To Return

Looking back at the history of watchmaking, there are some inevitable names to be mentioned: Abraham-Louis Breguet, John Harrison, Thomas Mudge, John Arnold, Antide Janvier, Jean-Marc Vacheron and Christiaan Huygens, just to name a few. Moving up North, in the city of Copenhagen, to be precise, we have to talk about one of the most important dynasties of watchmaking, one that had great influence both in the past and in recent years, the Jürgensen family. The story started in 1745 with the birth of Jørgen Jørgensen, and in recent days, it involved some of the most important individuals for independent watchmaking. In 2025, this great name is set to return with none other than Kari Voutilainen as the co-CEO of what will be one of the most important relaunches in recent years. But before we’re able to talk about the future of Urban Jürgensen, which will happen in a few days, let’s look at its past. 

As with many of the names above that survived, the story of Urban Jürgensen is both fascinating, full of heritage and innovations, beautiful moments and tragedies and, ultimately, complex. It involves some of the greatest names in past and modern watchmaking – Baumgartner, Pratt, Crott and Voutilainen, for instance – and has had its ups and downs, its moments of glory and its periods of doubts.

The early days and the Jürgensen family

The Jürgensen dynasty, or should I say the Jørgensen dynasty, starts in Copenhagen, Denmark, on December 24, 1745, with the birth of Jørgen Jørgensen, the forefather of the Jürgensen heritage. The son of a servant to the royal court, Jørgen was the first in a story that spans over four generations. At 14, he secures an apprenticeship with Copenhagen watchmakers Johan and Ephraim Lincke. In spring 1766, Jørgen sets out on the obligatory journey of personal and professional discovery that, since time immemorial, is the duty of a guild apprentice. His first stop would be Germany, where he pursued an apprenticeship as a watchmaker for six years. There, he would master new tools, methods, and techniques. He even adopts the German spelling for his name, becoming Jürgen Jürgensen.

Jürgen then eventually travelled to Switzerland, in the city of Le Locle, to be precise, to work alongside Jacques-Frédéric Houriet. The latter, an important man at the time and a renowned watchmaker, was at the vanguard of industrialising what was still an artisanal craft. From this lifelong friendship with Houriet, Jürgen Jürgensen would also learn new manufacturing methods and higher standards of quality. Indeed, at the time, most watches found in Denmark were imported from Germany, France or Switzerland, with a relatively low level of quality.

Jürgen Jürgensen went back to his native country in 1772, with the idea of setting up a proper watchmaking industry in the country, something that was non-existent at the time. On April 29th, 1773, he applied to the guild for permission to make his Master Watchmaker’s qualifying piece, a repeating pocket watch of his own design. As a prerequisite, he went to see an established guildsman and master watchmaker, Isaac Larpent, who was assigned to assist and supervise. While the two men already knew each other, this joint creation led them to share ideas about a bigger project, that of founding a watchmaking industry in Denmark. This, over the next years, grew into a watchmaking company, “Larpent & Jürgensen.” It was only several years later, in 1781, that Jürgen Jürgensen finally received the authorisation to establish a watch factory. During the Larpent & Jürgensen era (1773-1814), around 4,000 watches would be produced.

Five children will be born from his union with Anne Leth Bruun, the daughter of a wealthy Copenhagen businessman, including Urban, on August 5, 1776. A few years later, Jürgensen was also appointed Royal Clockmaker to the Danish Court. Younger brother Frederik, born 19 August 1787, also followed his father’s career as a watchmaker. That said, eldest brother Urban will undoubtedly become the most famous of the four generations of the Jürgensen family, giving his name to the brand we know today, and being the most important Danish watchmaker of all time.

Urban will be trained in Denmark by his father Jürgen, up until the age of 21, when he realised that he had given his son everything he could in his native country. In 1797, Urban embarked on his own journey. With a grant from the Danish government, he sets out on a learning mission to the workshops of Europe’s foremost watchmakers of the time in Geneva, Paris, and London. His first stop would be Le Locle, to work and learn alongside his father’s friend Jacques-Frédéric Houriet. In 1799, Urban leaves for Paris to receive training from the greatest watchmakers of the time, both close friends of Houriet, Abraham-Louis Breguet and Ferdinand Berthoud, as well as spending some time in London in the ateliers of John Arnold and of John Brockbank.

In 1801, Urban Jürgensen went back to Le Locle to marry Houriet’s daughter Sophie Henriette, before travelling back to Copenhagen after four years of international travel and learning. Just after his return, Urban immediately went to work, importing machines and applying everything he learned in order to make high-precision pocket watches and marine chronometers. Further reinforcing his influence on the Danish watchmaking scene, Urban published a book named Rules for the Accurate Measurement of Time by Watches and Clocks, which became a standard for Danish watchmakers and is still considered a major reference work today. A year later, in 1805, Urban received a gold medal from the Royal Danish Agricultural Society for his bimetallic pocket thermometers.

In 1811, Urban Jurgensen founded his own business in the Danish Capital, just after the passing of his father Jürgen Jürgensen on April 16, 1811. Urban’s younger brother Fredrik took over the family watchmaking business so that Urban could focus on his own work. Fredrik achieved quite a success too, being himself appointed court horologist, purveyor of clocks and watches to the Danish royal family and state institutions. Fredrik’s stewardship was uncompromising luxury items and fewer than 500 total pieces made in the 32 years between his taking over and his death in 1843. During this time, Urban focused his time on serially produced marine chronometers and astronomical pendulum clocks of the utmost quality and precision. Urban passed away on 14 May 1830, with his three sons, two being watchmakers (Louis Urban and Jules Frederik) and Frederik (known as Fritz, The Colonel), later associated with the Jürgensen business as Urban Jürgensen & Sönner.

From 1800 up until his death, it is said that Urban made over 700 pocket watches, 45 chronometers (deck watches for the most part) and many examples of his bimetallic pocket thermometers. This leads us to the third generation, with Urban’s three surviving sons (aged 24, 22 and 13). His eldest son, Louis Urban, trained as a watchmaker with his father from 1822 to 1828, before international studies in Paris, London and several places in Switzerland. Jules Frederik took over the family business with Louis Urban, before the latter became the sole owner in 1835, being at the head of the Copenhagen business, while Jules moved permanently to Switzerland. Under the two sons, Urban Jürgensen remains as synonymous as ever with the highest attainable precision and reliability, combined with uncompromising craftsmanship and quality materials. Louis Urban passed away in July 1867, and the Danish branch Urban Jürgensen & Sønner would later be lead by his widow, Anette, and his younger brother Frederik.

In the meantime, Jules Jürgensen’s son, Jacques Alfred Jürgensen (born May 17, 1842), traced his own path, making his own movements and coming up with fresh innovations, one of them a decimal motion work that was on display at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1867. In 1886, when Louis Urban’s widow Annette passed away, the transition was managed by Fritz, who trusted horologist Heinrich E. Kiens to take over the family business, which stayed active in Copenhagen, to handle the trade and repair of clocks and pocket watches. After his death, the business will be in the hands of his widow and later his son Carl Kiens, who took over in 1911.

As for the Swiss side of the company, Jacques Alfred Jürgensen passed away in 1912 with no children, but the company continued to survive in an unexpected way. David Golay, a trusted friend, continues the company’s operations under the old name after Jacques Alfred’s passing. World War I is raging at the time, and business has soured. Fashions shift to slimmer, lighter-weight watches and, facing these challenges, Golay decides to sell the company.

difficult times

In 1919, Henry Freund & Bros., the brand’s main distributor in New York, joins forces with Bienne-based Ed. Heuer & Co., to acquire the assets of Urban Jürgensen Copenhagen. The new owners immediately set out to burnish the Jürgensen image, investing heavily in a new collection. The timepieces manufactured in Bienne by Heuer between 1919 and 1930, under the supervision of Hubert Bernard Heuer, the founder’s grandson, faithfully capture the spirit of the original Urban Jürgensen. However, the 1929 Great Depression led to the closure of the Biel-based factory in 1932. Jules Jürgensen changed hands once again in December 1936, as a result of the Great Depression and the difficult times on the US market.

From 1936 to 1974, this is what we can call the dark year of Urban Jürgensen. The company endured a series of ownership changes, from Ed. Heuer & Co. to Aisenstein Woronock & Sons. Inc. of New York to Victor Huff to Downe Communication in Philadelphia to Morton Clayman, who sets about manufacturing watches in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, with components sourced from Switzerland. This venture, under the name Jules Jürgensen, is a low point in the company’s uninterrupted legacy, proves unsuccessful, and is promptly wound down after Clayman’s death. This is when we can claim the end of high-end watches made under the Urban Jürgensen name.

The Baumberger takeover, the renewal of the late 1970s

This is potentially the most important moment in the modern era of Urban Jürgensen. Born in 1939, Peter Baumberger, born in Koppigen, Switzerland, trained at the Solothurn watchmaking school. After graduation, he would be working together with his father, a producer of luminous dials.

In 1976, in Copenhagen, the Clock and Watchmakers’ Guild celebrated the 200th anniversary of Urban Jürgensen’s birth. At the time, there was still a small shop selling antique Jürgensen watches, Urban’s publications, and other memorabilia… Basically, the last vestige of the Jürgensen legacy in Denmark. The shop’s proprietor, Christian Gundesen, a former journeyman watchmaker himself, owned everything, including the rights to the name. And for the occasion, the shop’s front window was specifically decorated, which caught the eye of Peter Baumberger, who had the habit of sourcing antique districts of cities he visited.

At the sight of the shop, Baumberger sensed a unique potential. Slowly, a connection would be created between him and Gundesen, who offered him to buy the whole place, including the rights to the Urban Jürgensen name. It took Baumberger 3 years to achieve his goal. In the meantime, Gundesen sold the shop to his nephew, Gerhard Scheufens. But by 1979, the Quartz Crisis had devastated much of the Swiss mechanical watchmaking industry. By selling his prized collection of antique watches, he raised the capital to acquire the necessary equipment and managed to convince Scheufens to sell the brand to a non-Dane.

Then began the new era of Urban Jürgensen, as he brought along with him English watchmaking legend Derek Pratt. Both men had known each other for some years and Baumberger was sponsoring Pratt for him to work his own movement. Pratt had a special reputation – though less well-known than his friend and collaborator George Daniels, Pratt was the more technically sophisticated of the pair. In their legendary weekly calls, Pratt solved many of Daniel’s most complicated watchmaking questions.

Image Phillips

Image Phillips

The initial business plan of the Baumberger/Pratt era was to create a small production series of pocket watch tourbillons, paving the way for a new generation of wristwatches. This will lead the pair to present and manufacture 11 different references of wristwatches, numbered from 1 to 11. Stepped cases, elegant teardrop-shaped lugs, and meticulously crafted two-tone, frosted, and hand-guilloché dials would define the collection, not without a certain connection with what Daniel Roth did with Breguet back in the days.

The first model, the 1982 reference 1, was a chronograph calendar wristwatch – it has to be said that, as splendid as the tourbillon pocket watches made by Pratt were, they never were sufficient to run the business. Already featuring all the hallmarks of modern UJ wristwatches, this triple calendar, moon-phase, and chronograph was a selfwinding gold watch with teardrop lugs, stepped bezel and guilloché dial – laying down the foundations for the design language to come. The base of the movement was an El Primero, as Baumberger acquired new-old-stock ébauches from the 1960s. 186 examples would be made between 1982 and 1986.

The reference 2 was launched in 1986, consisting of 50 platinum and 172 gold wristwatches with perpetual calendar, moon phase, and the upgraded Frederic Piguet 71 automatic movements, the same base as used in contemporary Breguet and Roth. The QP module was developed by Lemania. This 38mm watch features a slimmer stepped bezel but retains the teardrop lugs and guilloché dial.

The reference 3 was launched in 1993, as the direct successor to the reference 2. The difference lies in the addition of a power reserve complication around the moonphase at 12 o’clock, something dear to Baumberger and Pratt since they made the deliberate choice not to have a leap year display. Though simple in appearance, this new addition proved complex and caused much trouble to the company, as well as being considerably more expensive than planned, leading UJ into a difficult financial situation. Fewer than 100 examples of the reference 3 would be produced, and the ref. 2 and ref. 3 were the foundation for subsequent watches based on the same concept: the ref. 9 with sub-dial displays, and the ref. 10 with small seconds, as well as the ref. 4 with dual time indication (potentially a unique piece).

In the meantime, entry-level watches would be launched, under the reference 5, reference 8 and reference Big 8, two- and three-hand watches with Frederic Piguet calibre 1150 and 1160. There was also the lesser-known reference 6, with a tonneau-shaped case – but this is likely that this watch never made it beyond the prototype stage. Reference 7, nicknamed the Diaplago, was a custom-made watch with a Dali-like case with a diamond-set bracelet. In total, 11 references would be made before Peter Baumberger passed away in 2010.

Beyond this, it was clear for Baumberger and Pratt to develop a dedicated movement for Urban Jürgensen, with the projects P8 and P4. In 2005, the team embarks on a seemingly impossible quest: to create a mechanical wristwatch with the accuracy and efficiency of a marine chronometer. Despite the challenges, they persevered and in 2011 unveiled the Calibre P8, a groundbreaking achievement and the brand’s first serially produced in-house movement in the modern era.

Pratt had a very clear idea when talking about a dedicated movement for UJ. Consdering the rich past of the brand, he wanted something in line with the tradition of Urban Jürgensen, meaning a precision timepiece with a chronometer escapement. Pratt, using a Unitas ébauche as a base, started in 2003 to work on incorporating a detent escapement, which prove difficult considering the needs for miniaturisation and the well-known issue of this type of escapement’s sensitivity to shocks. While the prototype was achieved by Pratt, serial production proved difficult and this called for the intervention of specialists in conception and industrialisation, and the development was placed in the hands of then-young engineer Jean-François Mojon, known today as the owner of Chronode – one of the top movement designers and manufacturers in Switerland.

The goal was to create a base movement capable of receiving multiple types of escapement – detent or lever – as well as complications. This would lead to the Calibre P8 with chronometer escapement and the Calibre P4 with lever escapement. However, Derek Pratt passed away in 2009 and Peter Baumberger in 2010. Towards the end of the story with Urban Jürgensen, someone else of importance and relevance would take over, the famous auctioneer named Doctor Helmut Crott.

The other Scandinavian watchmaker

In the meantime, as of 1996, another Scandinavian watchmaker started to be involved within the company, Kari Voutilainen. The latter worked with Pratt and Baumberger, first by finishing dials for the brand. It is also important to note that his time working together with the two owners of UJ strongly influenced his later work under his eponymous name, with distinctive design elements later found in his watches, such as the open-tip hands, the teardrop lugs or the guilloché dials.

More importantly, Voutilainen will be involved in what is possibly the most important watch of the modern era of Urban Jürgensen, the Oval Pocket Watch. Back in 2005, initially created by Derek Pratt during his tenure as Urban Jürgensen’s technical director, he wanted to create his magnum opus and it took over two decades for him to complete the watch. Due to his illness, Baumberger handed over the assembly and finishing of the watch as a kit of parts to Kari Voutilainen who completes the famous work. The unique piece features a one-minute flying tourbillon with an integrated remontoire constant-force mechanism, an Earnshaw-style spring-detent escapement, and a moon phase display. The watch, made between 1982 and 2005, and finished at the end of 2006 by Kari Voutilainen, was auctioned in 2024, achieving CHF 3,690,000 under the hammer of Phillips – you can read an in-depth story about it here.

The DR. Crott Era and the Late Return to the Danes

The sudden loss of Baumberger leaves Urban Jürgensen without its guiding figure. Fortunately, his close friend, Dr. Helmut Crott – a distinguished authority in horology, renowned collector, and passionate admirer of the brand’s legacy – steps in to provide continuity. Under Dr. Crott’s leadership, the team sustains its tradition, not only of creating exceptional watches that exemplify both technical prowess and craftsmanship, but also of innovating.

One of Dr. Crott’s key accomplishments is unifying the Jules Jürgensen and Urban Jürgensen brands after nearly 200 years of separate operation. Despite this and the success of the new collections, along with the brand’s rising profile, Dr. Crott recognises the need for a structure capable of managing the inevitable financial demands while preserving the brand’s values.

In late 2014, a consortium of Danish private equity investors present a strategy for sustainable growth and purchase the company, including Soren Petersen, a Danish watch collector and business man. During this time, Urban Jürgensen launches new collections based on the P4 and P8 movements, under the movement design direction of Jean-François Mojon, expands its global retail network, and in 2017, opens a new headquarters in Biel, at the heart of Swiss watchmaking. During this time, the brand also presented a surprising sports watch, the One collection. In 2021, however, things will change again for the company.

2021, the new family owners and Voutilainen as Co-CEO

In 2021, the company owned by Petersen is acquired by an American family of devoted watch collectors who, along with a small group of strategic investors, set about faithfully returning Urban Jürgensen to its roots. And since then, the watch community has been eaferly waiting to hear more about the grand return of Urban Jürgensen. The goal of this group of investors, together with Voutilainen, is to bring back the watch brand to its former glory, setting the standards of design, technical innovation, and watchmaking quality to a high level.

For that, the conception of the watches has been entrusted to Kari Voutilainen as Co-CEO. Alex Rosenfield, who represents the family, also joins as Co-CEO. He brings experience in fashion, media, and marketing, with a focus on building meaningful brands. The manufacture, still based in Biel, is under the direction of Voutilainen’s daughter, Venla.

And what we can tell you now is that: two years ago was the 250th anniversary of the founding of Urban Jürgensen and this year it will be the year of the return, which is due in less time than it took me to write this article… The company will continue to conduct its design, manufacturing, and production operations in Switzerland and a full collection is to be expected very soon, with clear elements from both the history of Urban Jürgensen and Voutilainen’s expertise in high-end watchmaking. More details soon at urbanjurgensen.com.