Not all images were able to load for printing. Please close the print window and try again. The Marco Lang Seven Spheres, a 7-Axis Tourbillon Built with Pure Watchmaking Idealism
This watch is the result of following an irrational idea until it became a reality.
Marco Lang, known to many as co-founder of Lang & Heyne, has always practised watchmaking with a deeply personal perspective. Since leaving the Dresden-based manufacture and launching his own independent path, his work has become even more intimate and experimental, and the Seven Spheres is the best expression of his creative freedom so far. The Marco Lang Seven Spheres is not a watch conceived solely around practicality or performance claims; it is the physical manifestation of an obsession, influenced by astronomy and cinema, and rooted in classical Saxon watchmaking. We offered our initial take on the watch earlier this year, with a bit of technical details; this one is more about what you see and feel.
The Machine
At first glance (and second, and third), the watch appears almost impossible to process. The eye naturally locks onto the massive central regulator, a suspended kinetic construction surrounded by titanium rings that rotate on multiple axes. It is technically a seven-axis central tourbillon, but describing it merely as such is insufficient. The Seven Spheres behaves like a moving mechanical treasure, and it slowly reveals its precious complexity the longer you have it in your hands.
The inspiration comes from several directions. Marco Lang cites Carl Sagan’s book Contact and its famous rotating machine, used to send Jodie Foster god knows where in the 1997 cinematic version, as a visual “trigger”. Still, the concept is tied to ancient cosmology. The name Seven Spheres comes from the seven celestial spheres of Ptolemaic and Copernican worldviews, where planets moved around Earth or the Sun in concentric orbital systems. The astronomical subject comes to life in the regulator’s design, where nested rings rotate in a hypnotic rhythm.
While many contemporary multi-axis tourbillons prioritise speed and spectacle, the Seven Spheres moves deliberately slowly. The outermost ring completes a rotation in one hour, while the innermost structures rotate more rapidly toward the escapement at the centre. The tourbillons are like a classic ballet performance, and here this measured choreography is very calming and beautiful as it builds tension through gradual motion without even a hint of visual aggression. For a less poetic description, some tourbillons stare you in the face; this one gently pulls you in.
Now, the reason for the slower behaviour is technical. Energy must pass through seven levels of gearing before reaching the escapement (see the animation here), and every additional axis introduces friction and inertia. Marco Lang chose not to solve this challenge through lightweight composites or ultra-high-speed cages. Instead, he stayed faithful to more traditional materials and hand-crafted construction methods.
The seven nested rings are made of titanium, yet Lang explains that titanium alone was too lightweight to ensure perfect rotational balance. Tiny platinum inserts had to be integrated inside the structures to stabilise the motion. Even the wheels and pinions required special geometries due to the extremely tight spacing between components. The watch required years of experimentation and the construction of entirely new tools to enable assembly.
The Case
The Seven Spheres 42mm case is relatively restrained and will certainly look familiar to those who follow Marco’s work, as it repeats the Zweigesicht-1 design, but without the modular lugs. Crafted in platinum, with a decorated middle (optional), it has a classic Saxon profile with sloping lugs, polished contours and discreet guards protecting the decorated crown. The massive top sapphire crystal reveals the mechanical universe inside. Total thickness reaches 18mm, largely due to the height of the central regulator, yet the strongly domed crystal softens the proportions.
The lugs curve sharply downward, the watch sits comfortably and close to the wrist, and the focus remains on the centre inside rather than the case dimensions. It certainly is not what we now call compact, but its presence is not the kind often associated with oversized complications.
The Time Display
One of the watch’s most fascinating elements is its hour-and-minute display system. Conventional hands would never work with such a large central structure, so Marco Lang uses floating arrow-shaped hands mounted on peripheral rotating rings. The blued steel hands appear suspended above the movement, orbiting the seven-axis tourbillon while indicating time on an engine-turned (filet sauté guilloche) chapter ring, positioned at the edge of the dial.
The effect is spectacular, with the floating arrowheads visible above the rotating titanium spheres; it seems as if the watch has no fixed architecture at all. On the chapter ring, with minutes marked in red at 5-minute intervals, the hours are not indicated, but there’s a Marco Lang signature at the top and a ‘Made in Saxony’ mention at the bottom.
The Reverse side
Turning the watch over presents another interesting view. The movement is composed around the oversized regulator, with components pushed toward the periphery. Four mainspring barrels provide the energy, and an elaborate winding train connects everything through exposed gears.
Unlike some industrially optimised complications that can feel way too clean, the Seven Spheres retains the human quality. You sense the amount of persistence behind every surface. The perfect finishing is unmistakably Saxon in spirit, with frosted and gilded plates, brushed-steel bridges, black-polished elements, engravings, and carefully bevelled edges. The two swan-neck click springs, each circumventing a diamond, immediately remind of certain historical Lang & Heyne movements.
Thoughts, Availability & Price
Marco Lang admits the project was driven more by idealism than by gains in precision, and this honesty provides the watch much of its appeal; the Seven Spheres feels deeply personal and emotional.
At EUR 250,000 (before taxes), with orders allocated for at least the nearest decade (it is a limited edition of 18 pieces), the Seven Spheres exists in an understandably rare category. Yet, compared to ambitious multi-axis constructions from larger brands, it offers something uncommon: the sense that a single watchmaker’s imagination remains fully visible in the object of his work. For more details, please visit www.marcolangwatches.com.
