Cité des sciences et de l'industrie
Helmut Crott
Surgeon
Watchmakers roundtable : How do watches offer new readings of time?
Dr. Helmut Crott was a surgeon before discovering the arts of horology techniques as a collector. Captured by the fascinating subject of timekeeping through sophisticated objects, he rapidly became an expert in the field of exceptional timepieces – for now, more than half a century! Studying rare and valuable timepieces first hand have allowed him to gain invaluable insight. He also created the world’s largest, most comprehensive and detailed Patek Philippe database and owns rare and unusual source materials on horology history and know-how. He is sharing his passion of vintage watches and horology exclusive timepieces by offering accurate consultancy to private collectors and historical brands of the contemporary watch industry
22 novembre 2019 17:30 - Amphi Louis Armand
Clockmakers have always shaped the most innovating mechanisms to offer precision all around the clock. But what do they measure exactly? In the past, stopwatches were scientific objects that were indispensable for navigators. But today their purpose has changed. More than ever, watches have become a way of life, a symbol of a delicate know-how, a social status, an access to a certain measure of time… a privilege to choose to know what time it is anywhere else on the planet. Possessing a watch that required months of work spent on a workbench gives the illusion of acquiring time’s sap. The clockmaker’s lifeblood spent while designing the cogs and the decorations of the exceptional piece of work. Some clockmakers address a way different message than a simple measure of time, they stop time and rewrite it on demand. Sometimes, they even claim they can slow it down… Haven’t watches become messengers of a new reading, revealing new challenges our society has to face? Don’t they now escape time itself? Meet traditional clockmakers and clockmaking specialists. With the complicity of the platform Time-In-Tempo.