URWERK UR-10 SpaceMeter

A bridge between space and time

The URWERK UR-10 SpaceMeter is far more than another milestone in the brand’s trajectory — it’s a rebirth. A poetic collision between space and time, heritage and innovation, science and emotion. With this creation, URWERK reinvents itself without ever losing its essence.

At first glance, it’s a shock: a round dial, central hands, concentric subdials… elements that seem almost foreign to URWERK’s DNA. Yet, they reveal another dimension of its creative identity — a bold exploration of form and meaning that feels both unexpected and inevitable.

An URWERK unlike any other

Yes, the UR-10 SpaceMeter has a round dial. Yes, it has central hands. But make no mistake — this is no conventional watch. It belongs, 1000%, to URWERK’s Special Projects collection: an unbounded space where the brand’s imagination runs free.

Here, the three subdials don’t measure time — they measure space. The UR-10 is a Spacemeter, a world first that tracks the distance our planet travels through the cosmos.

• EARTH (at 2 o’clock) – displays every 10 km of Earth’s daily rotation, graduated in 500-meter increments.
• SUN (at 4 o’clock) – records every 1,000 km of Earth’s solar orbit, moving in 20 km steps.
• ORBIT (at 9 o’clock) – combines the two trajectories, translating Earth’s rotation and revolution into synchronized scales.

On the back, a peripheral hand sweeps around a 24-hour scale, symbolizing a full terrestrial rotation. Engraved icons of the Earth (rotation) and Sun (revolution) dance in opposite directions — clockwise and counterclockwise — echoing the true motion of our planet around its star.

“Time and space are one and the same reality,” says Martin Frei, URWERK’s co-founder and artistic director. “The UR-10 reminds us of our dual nature: human beings living in human time, and travelers aboard a planet in constant motion through the cosmos.”

Origins: the Baumgartner saga

The UR-10’s genesis lies in the Baumgartner family’s deep horological roots.
A grandfather, an artisan of time. A father, Gérard, a renowned restorer of antique clocks. And a son, Felix, the master watchmaker who chose a path of rupture — one of bold, futuristic creation.

In 1996, Gérard discovered a mysterious clock signed Gustave Sandoz, master chronometrist and official watchmaker to the French Navy in the 19th century. It had three dials, none showing the time — instead, it measured the Earth’s rotation. A planetary simulator of sorts.

After restoring it, Gérard gifted it to his son.

“My father, guardian of tradition, gave me a classic clock with hands… that doesn’t tell the time,” recalls Felix Baumgartner. “For me, who designs atypical, handless watches with Martin Frei, it was a bridge between worlds — the ultra-classical and the utterly disruptive. That clock inspired the UR-10, the first chronometer to express Earth’s motion in kilometers.”

A new mechanical architecture

To realize this vision, URWERK partnered with Vaucher Manufacture to create a purpose-built base movement, paired with a fully in-house URWERK complication module.
The result is a perfectly balanced mechanism — robust, efficient, and stunningly lightweight.

Inside, five wheels, five axes and numerous rubies work together to minimize friction. Skeletonized LIGA wheels weigh as little as 0.009 grams — the weight of a human eyelash — a feat of micro-engineering designed to conserve energy and maintain the purity of the concept.

A major innovation lies in the Double Flow Turbine, URWERK’s patented unidirectional automatic winding system. Two opposing turbines generate air resistance to regulate rotor speed, protecting the mechanism while creating a hypnotic visual effect.

Design and structure: complexity within simplicity

The titanium and steel case of the UR-10 SpaceMeter is one of URWERK’s thinnest ever, at just 7.13 mm perceived thickness. Its construction, made of two interlocking parts screwed laterally, recalls the genius of Gérald Genta.

“We wanted a clear, symmetrical case with subtle tonal variations,” explains Martin Frei. “Only two parts — simplicity concealing extreme complexity.”

Both the dial and hands are entirely machined within URWERK’s own workshops, reaffirming the brand’s total creative control.

The primordial URWERK spirit

With the UR-10 SpaceMeter, URWERK revisits the essence of what defines it. Beyond futuristic aesthetics and satellite displays, the brand’s soul rests on three foundations:

1. A human link — embodied by the Baumgartner lineage and the brotherhood between its founders.
2. A design language in constant evolution, always in motion, always of its time.
3. Mechanical innovation, where every new creation explores an uncharted dimension of watchmaking.

“The UR-10 is a philosophical reflection on our place in the universe,” concludes Martin Frei. “Ultimately, that’s true of every URWERK.”