Every week, in addition to the eager watch fans who come to study, there are not many visitors to the original watchmaking factory in Glashütte. On the one hand, the watch factory was built in Glashütte, a small town in southeastern Germany that now has only 7,000 permanent residents. On the other hand, as Ulrike Kranz, the brand’s global public relations director, said, “Our parts supplier is very less.’
The pride in Ulrike Kranz’s words is obvious: since its integration into the Swatch Group in 2002, all movements and nearly 95% of the parts in the watch have been designed and produced by Glashütte original! In Pforzheim, 600 kilometers away from the town, the brand also has a factory dedicated to making its own dials. When we are exploring the path of brand development in the historical context, this independence of production may be the silver lining that people often say.
The brand and the town jointly built a German Glashütte Watch Museum, which has a record of the development of the local watch industry. In the 1830s, the silver mining industry in the town of Glashütte gradually declined. In 1845, a watchmaker and entrepreneur named Ferdinando Adolf Lange set up the first watchmaking workshop, Lange, which kicked off the vigorous development of the local watch industry.
In 1949, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was announced. In the following two years, eight watchmaking factories in the town of Glashütte were merged into one United Nations-operated enterprise: the Glashütte Watch Factory. After many years, the Cold War ended and Germany was unified. In 1995, the reorganized privatized high-end mechanical watch was officially named Glashütte Original.
Glashütte Original Watch Factory, near Lange and Nomos
The unique historical experience makes Glashütte Original establish a highly vertically integrated management operation and production model. Ulrike Kranz explained: ‘During the East German period, local residents had difficulty buying the necessary supplies, or they were short of money, or were unable to trade freely in other major German cities, so they had to choose to be self-sufficient.’
The newly renovated four-story building is spotlessly clean. Through the corridor, you can see the neatly laid out various high-tech equipment. Obviously, traditional spiritual ideas are being preserved here in another way.
For example, let us imagine the process of making a substrate. The grinding process on both sides of the substrate is completed by CNC lathes with up to 90 steps. Each small hole drilled for loading hundreds of movement parts has very specific parameter requirements, with tolerances not exceeding 0.001 mm. However, the computer machining process is only part of it. After verification, each substrate must be manually polished and fish scale carved.
The watchmaker plated a protective coating on the rotor
This exquisite craftsmanship is used to make every part of every watch, including of course the famous Glashütte pattern three-quarter splint, screwed gold sleeves and gooseneck-type fine-tuning device. In fact, it is precisely because of the rigorous quality of the watch that many connoisseurs think that the original Glashütte is seriously underestimated.
In different rooms, watchmakers and technicians in white coats are working hard under the glass curtain wall-from cutting and polishing to polishing and finishing, of course, including assembly of the movement. When we watched these staff curiously through the glass windows, they were immediately shocked by their full-fledged working status, and even approached and stared closely, they were unaware of them and completely forgotten, but this may also be the top in the industry. One of the essential qualities of brand work.
As for the future of the brand, the younger generation is undergoing rigorous scientific training at the Alfred Hevig Watch School (located in the Glashütte Museum, Germany). Every year, the school receives hundreds or thousands of applications, but only fifteen can be accepted for three-year courses.
Three-quarter splint is an original tradition of Glashütte
Glashütte’s original production process perfectly blends tradition with modernity. Similarly, experienced watchmakers collaborate with young and dynamic new students. There are more than a dozen watchmakers in the advanced complication department, who can spend a month assembling a movement as complex as a senator’s perpetual calendar. The youngest member of the department is only 22 years old and has not lost his childishness. He was a student at Alfred Hevig Watchmaking School two years ago. Ulrike Kranz explained with a smile: ‘He thinks (school and other departments) are too challenging.’ Now it seems that his choice is just right.
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