SCHOOL PROJECT

Glashütte Original’s Alfred Helwig Tourbillon 1920 pays tribute to the legendary Saxon schoolmaster who invented the flying tourbillon, on the occasion of the device’s 100th anniversary.

- Mark Bernardo

It was the Swiss who invented the tourbillon, but it was a German who taught it to fly.

One of the most significant horological inventions of the 19th century, and one that would enjoy a major renaissance in the 21st, was the tourbillon, invented circa 1795 by the legendary Neuchâtel-born watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet. Named after the French word for “whirlwind,” the revolutionary device placed a pocketwatch’s escapement and balance inside a minuscule cage that rotated on its axis 360 degrees every 60 seconds, thus compensating for the ill effects of gravity on a timepiece’s accuracy. Breguet’s tourbillon, and those made by others subsequently after his 1801 patent expired, were designed in the original, classic style, with the rotating cage anchored by two supporting bridges, one on the movement side, the other on the dial side. It wasn’t until 1920, in the German town of Glashütte, that a new evolution of the tourbillon would emerge, one in which the cage was cantlivered, or anchored on only the bottom — thus offering, in theory, the technical bonus of a more stable rate as well as the aesthetic one of an unimpeded view into the dynamic motions of the escapement, minus the top supporting bridge. This more freewheeling style of tourbillon — dubbed a “flying” tourbillon, and marking its 100th birthday in 2020 — was the signature achievement of Alfred Helwig, one of the most influential figures in the proud history of Glashütte watchmaking.