Urwerk’s Felix Baumgartner and his Personal Relationship with Time and Watches

Twelve on Time is a conversation series that invites leading personalities from the watch industry to step beyond their work and speak more personally about their relationship with time, creativity, and craft. Through a set of twelve questions, the column aims to lift the veil on both the individual and their perspective on watchmaking, revealing not only how they perceive watches but also how they perceive themselves within a culture shaped by precision, heritage, and emotion. For this new instalment in the series, we invite Felix Baumgartner, co-founder of Urwerk, to the table. 

1 – Which watch changed the way you looked at watchmaking? It was an 19th-century tourbillon on display at the Patek Philippe Museum. I was mesmerised. I stood there witnessing pure human genius: someone, three centuries ago, using the finest technology of their time, had invented a mechanism so refined it is still running and still being admired today. I told myself, “I want this.” Not to repeat it, but to do for our era what that watchmaker did for his: use today’s technology to create mechanisms nobody has ever seen before. That moment gave me the final push I needed to leave everything behind and jump into independent contemporary watchmaking.

2 – What is the quality you value most in a watch? The emotion it evokes. It can come from its design, its mechanical complexity, or the story behind it, but a watch that leaves you indifferent has failed at the one thing that matters. It has to make you feel something.

3 – Which is your favourite complication? The sympathique watch. For me, it’s the real Everest of watchmaking. Two independent mechanisms, each with its own life, somehow “speaking” to one another, synchronising, interacting. It’s mind-blowing.

4 – What is the most overrated trend in modern watchmaking? Nostalgia dressed up as innovation. Watchmaking should look forward, not spend its energy polishing the rearview mirror. We didn’t inherit this craft to freeze it in amber.

5 – What detail instantly tells you a watch was made with care? The small, almost invisible things: is it comfortable on the wrist? Is it intuitive to set? Could a child operate it without frustration? Genius isn’t only in the complication, it’s in how effortlessly the owner lives with it every day.

6 – Which moment do you believe most fundamentally shaped watchmaking as we know it today? The moment mankind needed a precise instrument to navigate the ocean, and later, the sky. Watchmaking was born from exploration, from the need to know exactly where you are when everything around you is in motion. That spirit is the one I try to keep alive.

7 – What is the greatest challenge facing the watch industry today? Walking with the crowd. There’s a real risk of uniformisation in mechanical watchmaking: the same silhouette, the same indications, the same finishing, repeated across the industry until nothing surprises us anymore.

8 – What outside sources of inspiration most influence your thinking in watchmaking? Aerospace engineering, above all, cockpits, satellites, and anything designed to function flawlessly in a hostile environment. Science fiction, too, has shaped how I imagine time: not as something that simply passes, but as something that moves through space.

9 – Which watch do you wish you had created? The first marine chronometer. Not for its beauty, but for what was at stake: get it wrong, and a ship is lost at sea. That kind of pressure produces a different order of genius. One where the mechanism isn’t just admired, it’s trusted with lives.

10 – Which watch do you wear most when nobody is watching? No surprise: it’s an URWERK, the EMC. A challenging watch that kept me awake and on my toes for quite a while.

11 – Which personality has most shaped your view of watchmaking? My father, without a doubt. He was a passionate watchmaker, now retired, and he taught me at his side, on the bench, the beauty of a wheel, the secret sound of a well-adjusted pendulum. These are all technical parts that only become art once the mechanics are flawless. Everything I know about respecting the craft I learned watching him work.

12 – What should younger collectors focus on before buying their next watch? Pleasure. Forget the talk of return on investment and “safe” purchases. That’s a language for accountants, not collectors. You’re young: have fun, follow your instinct, and let the knowledge come along the way. The best collections are built by people who bought what they loved.