{"id":26108,"date":"2020-01-08T12:32:52","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T12:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.horbiter.com\/the-longines-museum-in-st-imier\/"},"modified":"2022-06-29T17:17:01","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T15:17:01","slug":"longines-museum-visit-live-event-st-imier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horbiter.com\/en\/longines-museum-visit-live-event-st-imier\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the Longines Museum in St.Imier"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has finally happened; after two aborted missions \u2013 my fault \u2013 I managed to visit the Longines<\/strong> museum in Saint-Imier. That was the present that Longines<\/strong> gave to me on a fresh September Monday, the trip to a place that opens, once and for all, my eyes on to the story of a successful brand that has written many pages in the history book of watch-making. This is a present that everyone can afford as the brand with the winged hourglass as its logo allows every fan to enter its museum, even from their own living room through a virtual application that can be found on the manufacturer\u2019s official website. This type of visit, however, can\u2019t replace the real life experience!<\/p>\n

\"LonginesThis is an experience that, in conjunction with a final interview to the current president, helps to understand the reason why this brand has never known the meaning of the word \u201ccrisis\u201d and has been enjoying one success after another. The museum lies within the historic manufacturing workshops in Saint<\/strong>\u2013Imier<\/strong>, the official seat of the brand, a historic building nested among luscious green hills \u2013 pending the arrival of some snow \u2013 and situated about 30 minutes by car from Neuchatel<\/strong>. The arrival is an experience in itself because you reach the Longines museum after driving along a road full of bends, a small haven if you like driving and you are on board the right car too.<\/p>\n

\"LonginesLike in every other respectable museum, the visitor is guided through a planned route; there are six areas that have been divided up by topic and history. The first two areas that have laconically been named \u201cAgassiz<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cFrancillon<\/strong>\u201d celebrate the brand\u2019s origin and the main two characters in its history. The remaining four areas are called \u201cTradition Horlog\u00e8re<\/strong>\u201d, \u201cAventure<\/strong>\u201d, \u201cSport<\/strong>\u201d, \u201cPublicit\u00e9<\/strong>\u201d\u00a0et \u201c\u00c9l\u00e9gance<\/strong>\u201d. The latter name is self-explanatory for a brand, whose mission statement has been the sentence \u201cElegance is an attitude<\/em>\u201d for years and that crafts every single item in full accordance with this motto, from its timepieces to the careful choice of its ambassadors.<\/p>\n

\"LonginesIn 1832<\/strong>, Auguste Agassiz<\/strong> founded a \u201ccomptoir d\u2019\u00e9tablissage<\/em>\u201d; basically, the workers manufactured the timepieces at home, which were then assembled and sold by Agassiz<\/strong> in a common building. Quite a bizarre entrepreneurial model that sounds almost unreal, it was Ernest Francillon<\/strong>, in 1867<\/strong>, who transformed Longines<\/strong> into a true manufacturing company and who moved every job under one roof. That\u2019s how the Longines<\/strong> brand that we know today was born and when the first of the company\u2019s official logo \u2013 the winged hourglass \u2013 was sketched.<\/p>\n

\"LonginesThe tour starts from a big room where the brand\u2019s archives have been gathered together, it is a huge collection of documents detailing information about years of manufacture, models, calibers, resellers and so on, it is not only a historic archive but rather a manner to go back to the origin of every single timepiece that the company has released since 1867<\/strong>. If you are interested in gathering some more information about a timepiece that you have inherited, this is the best place where you should send your Longines<\/strong> watch to; it is an extraordinary place, whose value is far superior than that of any modern digital archive. These books are the most authentic way to track back the roots of an old Longines<\/strong> timepiece.<\/p>\n

\"LonginesWhen you enter the \u201cTradition Horlog\u00e8re<\/strong>\u201d section and browse among the display cases within the room, you will suddenly bump into an enormous showcase situated in the back. The showcase is equipped with a scrollable magnifier and it displays all the calibers that Longines<\/strong> has crafted until today, it is the proof of a continuous and rich production made up of small rectangular manual calibers, calibers of every possible size and shape, extremely precise quartz movements and \u201cunidentified objects<\/em>\u201d like the 21.29CS<\/strong> caliber that you can see in this picture.<\/p>\n

\"LonginesThe calibers are mounted on wrist chronographs, race timing chronographs, ultra-slim timepieces with a rectangular case and exploration instruments too. Books and the web often talk about the 20A caliber<\/strong>, the 20H caliber<\/strong>, and the 13NZ caliber<\/strong> but these movements are only the tip of the iceberg or, better, the milestones of a never-ending research path that is leading towards chronometric precision. The 13NZ<\/strong> is a single-button or double-button caliber that was patented in 1936<\/strong>; it lies within the case of some of the two-counter-chronographs that are most sought-after by collectors, timepieces which are worth between 5,000<\/strong> and 25,000<\/strong> euro.<\/p>\n

\"LonginesIf you take a look at the mechanic side of this caliber, you will immediately realize why, on all the most recent L688<\/strong>\u2019s, the chrono function is sorted through a column wheel<\/strong> mechanism; this solution has been one of the brand\u2019s characteristics since 1936<\/strong>. Among the most important watches crafted by Longines<\/strong>, let us also remember this L\u00e9pine pocket-watch<\/strong> made of 18-carat-gold<\/strong> and equipped with a manual winding movement<\/strong>, Breguet<\/strong> hands, and calendar and moon phases.<\/p>\n

\"LonginesNeedless to say that the first half of the 21st<\/sup> century has represented a time of exploration and that watch-making was back then the most reliable navigation instrument, both in the air and in the sea. Even before timepieces became luxury accessories, their current function. Longines<\/strong> lived that time as a protagonist and the very proof of this is the 21.29CS<\/strong> caliber that I mentioned before; this caliber is mounted inside the case of a siderograph<\/strong>, which is a timepiece that provides the user with the Greenwich Time measured in degrees, minutes and fractions of arc minutes.<\/p>\n

\"LonginesI wasn\u2019t aware of the extent of Longines<\/strong>\u2019s contribution to the world of navigation and it was a very pleasant surprise to be able to see the brand\u2019s big navy chronometers. I am quite familiar with the Longines Weems Second-Setting Watch<\/strong> and the Lindbergh Hour Angle<\/strong>, the two diamonds in the history of experimental aviation and, at the same time, I envy all those people who are my age and had the luck to inherit one of the two references that sport the Wittnauer<\/strong> logo; the historic New York importer from last century. These are the most modern vintage aviator\u2019s timepieces that I have ever seen in my life.<\/p>\n

\"LonginesExperimenting has progressively moved from the aircraft cockpit and Charles Lindbergh<\/strong>\u2019s challenges to sport competitions. Longines\u2019s role as an official timekeeper boasts a long tradition that didn\u2019t stop when digital timekeeping was introduced but, on the contrary, it grew even stronger.<\/p>\n

\"LonginesIt is to this part of its history that Longines<\/strong> has dedicated an entire section of the museum; from the first broken-wire system to its experience in the world of F1 racing<\/strong> \u2013 I still remember the one-seat Ferrari<\/strong> car that sported the Longines<\/strong> logo on its front \u2013 . Today, the brand is one of the official partners of classic competitions like the horse-riding Global Championship Tour<\/strong> and\u00a0of the ski World Cup<\/strong> too.<\/p>\n

\"LonginesAfter completing our museum visit, we were \u201cescorted<\/em>\u201d to the manufacturing site, the only place where, as you can easily guess, we were not allowed to take any pictures. I haven\u2019t visited many manufacturing sites in the last three years, but I have to say that, type-wise and size-wise, they were very similar to that of Longines<\/strong>. What I gathered from this visit was that, from a technological point of view, the company has moved fast-forward and that it has also increased its investments aimed at improving the quality of its product at the end of the line even further.<\/p>\n

\"WalterBest moment? The interview to Walter von K\u00e4nel<\/strong>. He has been the president of Longines<\/strong> since 1988<\/strong> and he is the symbol of the brand\u2019s continuity spirit, an extraordinarily funny man who talks about timepieces with the same passion as a youngster who has just received a watch as a present. When I asked the president whether Longines<\/strong> would ever create a manual winding Heritage<\/strong> and a rattrapante<\/strong> watch starting off one of its single-button chronographs, he deemed me \u201ca collector<\/em>\u201d. Those were probably the funniest thirty minutes of my day. An experience that every person who is passionate about timepieces deserves to do and that can be easily booked on this link<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n