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he UR-100, the “fourth episode in the intergalactic saga of the 100 collection”, as Martin Frei, co-founder of Urwerk, in-house designer and sci-fi geek, explains.
Adepts of the genre will recognise the inspiration, taken straight from C-3PO, the Star Wars droid whose codes it reproduces right down to the yellow gold and pale sheen of its exterior. The slim eight-cornered case with its sides of irregular lengths, partially notched, is completed by a flattopped sapphire dome. The hour is displayed on rotating satellites and the minutes on a fixed, 120° graduated arc.
But what sets the UR-100 apart more than anything else is the “kilometric counter” on its sides. The kilometres in question are, at 9 o’clock, the 555.55 kilometres through which the Earth turns in 20 minutes at the level of the equator, and at 3 o’clock, the speed at which the Earth revolves around the sun, i.e. 35,740 kilometres every 20 minutes.
This period of space-time is indicated by the red arrow which, after having indicated the time, disappears and is transformed into a kilometric space indicator. This completely novel “complication”, poetic and philosophical at the same time, reminds us that even without moving, we are hurtling through space – and offers a whole new way of telling the time.
Not in hours and minutes, but in kilometres of travel around ourselves and around the sun.
