Made in Glashutte

How Glashütte Original has preserved the past

- Sean Mossadeg

I LOVE MUSEUMS. There is something about curated history that makes it fascinating to spend hours going through exhibits. Couple that with my admiration for German watchmaking, and you’ll understand why visiting the Glashütte German Watch museum was a gratifying experience for me.

The genesis of saxon watchmaking is a thoroughly documented affair in the world of horology and dozens of books have been written about how it started. of course, much of it came from the revolutionary mind of Ferdinand A. lange, the founder of the A. lange & söhne brand name.

After studying how swiss watchmakers set up towns dedicated to horology (and profited handsomely from it), lange submitted plans of his own to the saxon government, requesting to build a saxon version. The small town of Glashütte, far on the east of Germany, was chosen to be the hub of lange’s vision. His first mission was to educate the villagers on fine watchmaking and to accomplish this, he roped in his associate Adolf schneider to train 15 apprentices in 1845.

What lange and schneider imparted to these apprentices weren’t necessarily the generics of watchmaking. each apprentice learnt to craft different parts of his timepieces. lange then gathered all of them and used them in his watch manufacture.