THE PATEK PHILIPPE MUSEUM IN GENEVA

THE TEMPLE OF WATCHMAKING

PATEK PHILIPPE MUSEUM IN GENEVA

©Patek Philippe

THE PATEK PHILIPPE MUSEUM IN GENEVA

THE TEMPLE OF WATCHMAKING

The Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva is considered one of the most important watch museums in the world.

A STORY IN THREE CHAPTERS

The history of portable mechanical watches began 500 years ago. The Geneva manufacture Patek Philippe has helped write a third of this history. The Patek Philippe Manufacture has been making watches continuously since it was founded on 1 May 1839 and has always been privately owned. Patek Philippe is still in Geneva today and has its headquarters in its main building on the Rue du Rhône.

The manufacture is synonymous with haute horlogerie with sumptuously decorated and mechanically highly complicated creations, and all of this is on display in the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva's Plainpalais district. The museum displays a collection of timepieces from the last 500 years that is unique in the world and also a fascinating selection of Father Philippe masterpieces. There is also a library of over 8000 books and documents on timekeeping, one of the most important in the world. 

1851 QUEEN VICTORIA

Patek Philippe

 JEAN ADRIEN PHILIPPE

Jean Adrien Philippe was born on 16 April 1815 in La Bazoche-Gouet, France, the son of a watchmaker, and learned the trade from his father. After his journeyman's journey, he settles in Paris, where he invents a mechanism to wind and set pocket watches without a separate key. He exhibits his watches at the Paris Trade Fair in 1844, where they attract the attention of Patek. Philippe is persuaded by Patek to visit Geneva, where the two men agree on a future partnership. 

Philippe joins the company in 1845 and, as technical director, concentrates on the quality of its timepieces from the very beginning. His initial focus is on further perfecting his keyless winding and hand-setting system, which works with a crown in the bail of the pocket watch and is protected via French patent no. 1317 of 1845. For additional improvements to his crown winding and hand setting system, he received two more patents in 1860 and 1861. How advanced his solution is can be seen from the fact that even the manual winding of wristwatches of our time essentially follows his model.

Philippe was a conscientious observer of the watch industry and left behind a collection of notes, technical records, self-authored newspaper articles and essays that today occupy a place of honour in the Manufacture's archives. From Patek come the impulses for artistic perfection, transforming the watches into luxurious works of art with the help of elaborate craftsmanship with engravings, enamelling and precious gems, while Philippe's horological ambition continues to develop the technology behind them and constantly pushes the development of the so-called complications. This philosophy of viewing the watch as a self-contained whole is reinforced in the 21st century by the Patek Philippe Seal, whose regulations, as the Manufacture Constitution, set down in writing for the first time what has always applied to all Patek Philippe watches. 

After the death of Antoine Norbert de Patek in 1877, his son Léon leaves the company in exchange for a life annuity. The directorship is taken over by a son-in-law of Jean Adrien Philippe, Joseph Antoine Bénassy-Philippe. In 1891 - two years before his death - Jean Adrien Philippe hands over his post to his youngest son Joseph Emile. In the same year, Edouard Köhn leaves the company and hands over his place to François Antoine Conty, who had been in charge of production at the famous Geneva "Fabrique" for years, and Albert Cingria also returns his shares to Patek Philippe. In 1901, in order to make the company independent of temporary partnership agreements, the owners opt for the modern business form of the joint-stock company, and "Patek, Philippe & Cie" becomes "Ancienne Manufacture d'horlogerie Patek Philippe & Cie SA". 

1927 JAMES WARD PACKARD

©Patek Philippe

Anciens ateliers 1950

©Patek Philippe



CHAPTER 2

1932 to 1989 

BEGINNING OF THE STERN ERA

The 1st generation: Charles and Jean Stern 

October 29, 1929, "Black Tuesday", is the trigger for a world economic crisis that lasts for years. The "Ancienne Manufacture d'horlogerie Patek Philippe & Cie SA" runs into financial difficulties. The management turns to the brothers Charles and Jean Stern, who manufacture dials of the highest quality in their manufactory "Cadrans Stern Frères" and are among Patek Philippe's preferred suppliers. There is a friendly relationship and the Stern brothers are so solvent that they take over the company completely in 1932. This also introduced a new management philosophy into the Manufacture.

The position of general manager goes to the watchmaking expert Jean Pfister. Charles Stern takes over as Chairman of the Board of Directors in 1934. For the first time, Patek Philippe is owned by a single family.

In the same year, 1932, a watch model is launched, the Ref. 96, which will go down in history as the prototype of the now legendary Calatrava collection. Its case and dial design follows the Bauhaus credo: "Form follows function". Accordingly, the case is round and the dial and hands are limited to the necessary minimum so that nothing distracts from the time display. In this consistently functional design, the Calatrava is one of the first classically round wristwatches in the history of Swiss watchmaking and is considered the reference for this watch genre. 

1933 GRAVES SUPERCOMPLICATION

©Patek Philippe

HENRI STERN

The 2nd generation

In 1934, Charles' son Henri Stern (1911 - 2002) joins the company at the age of 23. In 1946, he founds the Henri Stern Watch Agency in New York, which is the sole importer for the USA. After Pfister's retirement in 1958, his father Charles gave him the position of general manager and president.

Henri Stern became enthusiastic about the art form of miniature painting on enamel known as "Geneva enamel" and began to build up a collection. When the demand for richly decorated watches with engravings, enamel miniatures, cloisonné and champlevé enamel wanes, he nevertheless keeps handing out commissions to the remaining artists, whose crafts have contributed much to Geneva's worldwide reputation but are increasingly forgotten. if the heavily decorated watches do not sell, they simply go into his collection.

His son Philippe will continue this passion.

The Manufacture is no stranger to electronics in timekeeping, and Patek Philippe soon becomes one of the leading suppliers of information systems for railway stations and airports with its electronics division, founded in 1946. In 1949 and 1951, Patek Philippe patented the Gyromax® balance, which allows the rate of a movement to be finely regulated solely by the variable moment of inertia of the balance. In 1954, the Manufacture was granted two patents for photoelectric table clocks, and in 1956 it built the first fully electronic table clock, which two years later won the "Award for Miniaturization" in the USA. 

The Patek Philippe tourbillon movement, on the other hand, is classically mechanical and sets a precision world record in a chronometry competition at the Geneva Observatory in 1962. In 1968, Patek Philippe joined other Swiss watchmakers in a project that resulted in the first series-produced Swiss quartz movement, the Beta 21, for wristwatches in 1970. At the same time, the first Patek Philippe quartz table watch with photoelectric cells is presented and an automatic winding system with a peripheral rotor is patented. And a new watch collection is launched that will make watchmaking history with its perfect shape in the proportions of the golden section: the Ellipse d'Or with automatic movement. 

PHILIPPE STERN

The 3rd generation

Born in 1938, Philippe Stern, the son of Henri, spent part of his youth in the USA. Although he had a burning interest in Patek Philippe, he was initially professionally involved in information technology. In 1963, he also joined the Henri Stern Watch Agency in New York. In 1966, he joined Patek Philippe in Geneva, where he first had to go through all the stages. 

In the 1970s, Philippe Stern took responsibility for a new watch model. He is a sporty type and as a sailor in the Lake Geneva regattas, he wants a sporty elegant watch. The result is the Nautilus Ref. 3700/1A, launched in 1976, with the slogan: "One of the most expensive watches in the world is made of steel". Its water-resistance to 120 metres is also a sensation at the time.In 1977, Philippe Stern becomes CEO of Patek Philippe.

The new CEO knows that the classic mechanical watch can only have a future against the more precise and much cheaper quartz watches if it is a product of the highest quality - a work of art and a collector's item. It is the confirmation of the credo of 1839 to build the best watches in the world. 

In 1977, the legendary extra-thin Patek Philippe Calibre 240 movement is presented. It has a patented automatic winding mechanism with a 22-carat gold mini-rotor completely embedded in the plate and allows the construction of extremely flat wristwatches such as the 1985 Perpetual Calendar Ref. 3940, which remains one of Philippe Stern's favourite pieces to this day.

In 1980, Philippe Stern embarks on a visionary marketing project: he hires watch engineers to transform Patek Philippe from a strongly artisanal manufacture into an industrial one.

The engineers and watchmakers are to devote themselves increasingly to horological complications, those functions that go beyond the display of hours, minutes and seconds: perpetual calendars, tourbillons, chronographs, time zone displays, astronomical indications such as sidereal time, phases of the moon, star charts, and of course the striking watches with minute repeaters, Grande and Petite Sonnerie, Westminster strike.

For the 150th anniversary of Patek Philippe, the Manufacture develops the most complicated wearable mechanical timepiece in the world: the Calibre 89 with 33 complications, which has not been surpassed to this day. At the same time, the automatic wristwatch movement with minute repeater Calibre R27 is developed, which tells the time with a fantastic sound without any annoying background noise: a good omen for the year 1989.

2000 STAR CALIBER

©Patek Philippe



CHAPTER 3

1989 to 2014 

An auction of the first Calibre 89 sets a new auction record for timepieces at 4.6 million Swiss francs. The limited anniversary wristwatches - the Jumping Hour Ref. 3969 and the Officer's Watch Ref. 3960 are immediately sold out.

In 1993 Henri Stern hands over his presidency to his son Philippe, and in 1994 Philippe Stern's son Thierry joins the company as the fourth generation of Sterns. The Patek Philippe ateliers, which were spread over various sites in Geneva, are united and a new manufacturing complex is built on the Geneva outskirts of Plan-les-Ouates.

In 2001, one of Philippe Stern's greatest dreams comes true: with the inauguration of the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva's Planpalais Quartier, his collection, which he has amassed with great passion and expertise over forty years, is made accessible to the public. With over 2000 watches, automata and enamel miniatures, and a library with over 8000 works on the subject of timekeeping, it has been one of the most important watch museums in the world from the very beginning. 

VISIT THE MUSEUM

Rue des Vieux-Grenadiers 7,

1205 Genève

Switzerland

www.patek.com