Glashütte watches

It means "glassworks" in German, which is a production facility for glass production and glass processing. Since glass production requires sand, soda or potash, feldspar and lime, glassworks were mostly built in mountainous and wooded regions starting from the Middle Ages. In German-speaking countries, there are dozens of towns or places that have "Glashütt", "Glashütte" or "Glashütten" in their names.

The name of the small town of Glashütte in the Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district also probably originates from a glassworks from the 15th century. Around the turn of the 16th century, silver ore was mined in the Glashütte area, which led to rapid but short-lived wealth in the region, as the silver deposits were quickly depleted. The copper mines in the area were somewhat more productive, but they did not provide sufficient income for the population, and mining there ceased entirely in 1875. Instead, Glashütte in Saxony had already made a name for itself as a watchmaking town by that time.

In the "Glashütte Rule," the Dresden Chamber of Industry and Commerce stipulated in 1930 that only watches that were "at least essentially" manufactured in Glashütte and possessed a precision regulator "that exhibited consistent performance as a timepiece over decades" could be called "Glashütte precision watches." What in turn may be considered a "precision watch" was outlined by the German Watchmakers' Association in 1904 with regard to the pocket watches common at that time as follows: "It must feature jewels of the very best quality, a hardened balance spring and cut compensation balance, and regulated so precisely in all positions and temperatures that it could obtain an accuracy certificate from a German or Swiss observatory." The establishment of this rule had become necessary because, on the one hand, new techniques such as "stencil watch" production were spreading and satisfying the growing demand with cheaper, increasingly automatically produced prefabricated movements, and on the other hand, a group of Swiss and German watch companies wanted to exploit Glashütte's reputation for their own profit by imbuing their own unfinished movements with Glashütte attributes.

Of the nine manufacturers of Glashütte watches today, six companies are owner-managed: Bruno Söhnle Glashütte, Moritz Grossmann, Mühle Glashütte, NOMOS Glashütte, Tutima and Wempe Glashütte. The companies A. Lange & Söhne, Glashütte Original and Union Glashütte belong to Swiss corporations. NOMOS Glashütte was founded in 1990 by Roland Schwertner. In addition to him, Uwe Ahrendt and Judith Borowski are part of its management today.

The fact that mechanical watches from Glashütte are as good as those from Switzerland is internationally known. Both designations of origin are protected, whereby some Glashütte companies do belong to Swiss corporations. The majority of Glashütte watchmaking companies, however, are entrepreneurially independent of Switzerland, and NOMOS Glashütte has also been completely independent in the production of its caliber since developing its own NOMOS swing system.

The Bauhaus school, whose teachings united art and craftsmanship, did not produce any watch models of its own during its existence (1919–1933). In this respect, there are no true "Bauhaus watches." Nevertheless, later watch designs by former Bauhaus students do exist, such as those by Max Bill from Switzerland for the German company Junghans. Overall, the functional design language of the Werkbund movement, from which Bauhaus originated, was also influential in the design of dials and watch models in the first half of the 20th century. A very specific dial from the Pforzheim company Weber & Baral, which was also sold to the Glashütte company A. Lange and others in 1937, is also an expression of this influence and became the inspiration for the first NOMOS watch 53 years later.

In 1990, when the founder of NOMOS Glashütte, Roland Schwertner, was conducting research for an initial watch model together with the graphic designer Susanne Günther, he discovered the Glashütte variant of the 1937 Weber & Baral dial in historical publications. Susanne Günther reworked the typography and proportions of the original, and in 1992 the first NOMOS model, Tangente, was launched on the market: slim, functional and focused on the essentials—very much in the spirit of Bauhaus as well as Deutscher Werkbund, which NOMOS Glashütte joined in the same year. To this day, the latter questions the relationship between material, function, form, industrial production and social responsibility. NOMOS Glashütte is the only watch manufacturer to be a member of Deutscher Werkbund.

Yes, absolutely. They are mechanical watches that are valued worldwide for their high-quality materials, innovative original calibers, meticulous design and traditional manufacturing methods. It is not without reason that the use of the place of origin "Glashütte" is protected by law and requires at least 50 percent of value creation to have taken place on site.

Up to 95 percent of NOMOS Glashütte's mechanical watches are made in the company's own manufactory in Glashütte, and have won 170 awards since 2000. Among others, they have received the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève, seven Good Design Awards presented by the Chicago Athenaeum, Museum of Architecture and Design and seven "Watch of the Year" awards, which is chosen by the audience.

Glashütte watches are known for their precision. The accuracy of mechanical watches, and thus also of Glashütte watches, depends on the calibers, but also on factors such as temperature fluctuations, jolts and air pressure. Watches from NOMOS Glashütte achieve an accuracy of only a few seconds deviation per day. Learn more about the accuracy of mechanical Glashütte watches here.