What you will see on this page, in glorious technical detail, are three timepieces heralding the rebirth of Urban Jürgensen. And they should tell you everything about the brand’s current owners — The Rosenfield Family and Kari Voutilainen — and their boundless ambition for their brand. For the seasoned collectors and horological connoisseurs, you may already know that Urban Jürgensen has achieved in its new watch, the UJ-1, what was once considered unachievable: the miniaturization of Derek Pratt’s Oval Tourbillon with cage-mounted remontoir d’égalité in a series-production wristwatch. With this, the brand has issued a clear, electrifying statement of intent that is, in horological significance, equivalent to the sonic boom announcing Chuck Yeager’s breaking of the sound barrier in his Bell X-1 over the Californian desert. This is a shot across the bow of the entire watchmaking establishment; it is saying that under the guidance of these impressive individuals, Urban Jürgensen intends to be the most technically innovative and aesthetically sublime watch brand in the world. Period.

Says Andy Rosenfield, one of the world’s most accomplished collectors of independent watchmaking, “There are no limits to what we want to achieve with Urban Jürgensen. We intend to set new benchmarks and make a meaningful contribution to modern watchmaking history. We’re not motivated solely by financial returns but rather by the achievement of excellence. Technical excellence. Horological excellence. Aesthetic excellence. And excellence in customer service.” Fitting indeed, because striving for the highest level was what motivated three generations of Jürgensens (Jürgen, Urban and Jules) as well as the brand’s 20th-century custodians, Peter Baumberger and Derek Pratt.

Rosenfield continues, “What we put in place today marks a new and clear chapter in the legacy of one of the world’s most important and innovative watchmakers.” Beginning with the monumental UJ-1, the Rosenfield Family and Kari Voutilainen have done just that.

The UJ-1: Honoring the Legacy of Derek Pratt

The Urban Jürgensen UJ-1 is, to my mind, the most technically significant new tourbillon wristwatch since 1991 when François-Paul Journe unveiled his Tourbillon Souverain prototypes. Like Journe’s watch, the UJ-1 combines the two most meaningful chronometric inventions in watchmaking history: first, the tourbillon patented in 1801 by Abraham-Louis Breguet to compensate for errors caused by gravity on pocket watches; second, the spring remontoir d’égalité that allowed John Harrison to create the H4 — the world’s first successful marine chronometer, which enabled the British to dominate the seas from the late 18th to early 20th century and which ultimately won for Harrison the Longitude Prize. But history aside, it is the way the tourbillon and the remontoir are combined in the UJ-1 that makes all the difference.

The Urban Jürgensen UJ-1 features a solid silver dial with the finest grain d’orge guilloché à main by Voutilainen’s Brodbeck Guillochage. Image: Revolution ©

Image: Revolution ©

Forgive the short horology lesson here — if you already know how remontoirs work, feel free to skip the next two paragraphs. First, let’s understand that while a tourbillon helps to compensate for errors caused by gravity, it is much heavier than a simple escapement and balance wheel. The added weight of the tourbillon cage means that as the mainspring unwinds and the quality and quantity of energy diminishes, the inertia of the cage amplifies the movement’s sensitivity to variations in torque. The solution for this is to remove the tourbillon from the direct influence of the mainspring using a remontoir — a secondary power source that removes the balance wheel from the diminishing torque of the unwinding mainspring. Journe has done this with his Tourbillon Souverain, but his remontoir is placed relatively far removed from the balance wheel. It powers a drive wheel, which powers the pinion of the tourbillon cage, which in turn drives an escape wheel around a fixed fourth wheel like any conventional tourbillon.

Says Revolution’s Technical Editor Cheryl Chia, “The accepted knowledge is that the closer you put the remontoir to the balance wheel, the more effective it is. The ideal solution is to place the remontoir on the escape wheel itself, because energy is being fed directly to the lever that impulses the balance wheel. That was the genius of Derek Pratt’s solution, which he implemented in Urban Jürgensen pocket watches. But in the past, it was not possible to miniaturize this for a wristwatch produced in series. This is the incredible significance of the UJ-1.” It is the first series-produced wristwatch that manages to place a cage-mounted remontoir directly on the escape wheel of the tourbillon. And that changes the game entirely!

The magnificent Urban Jürgensen UJ-1 recreates Derek Pratt’s Oval pocket watch with his signature tourbillon and cage-mounted remontoir for the wrist

This incredible technical achievement is the result of the life’s work of Derek Pratt, the brilliant British watchmaker who served as the technical director of Urban Jürgensen from 1982 to 2005. During this time, he created a series of stunning pocket watches featuring his amazing innovation. Pratt’s pocket watches were objects of staggering beauty with three- quarter plates and a massive tourbillon, occupying its own dedicated bridge at 6 o’clock. Pratt’s key innovation was the mounting of a spring remontoir d’égalité onto the cage and co- axial with the escape wheel. It is worth mentioning that there has been some debate about whether Pratt’s remontoir was, in turn, based on the work of a watchmaker named Robert Gafner, who was a professor of watchmaking in La Chaux-de-Fonds in the 1940s.

Pratt’s mechanism is a one-second remontoir, meaning that it discharges its energy and rewinds itself after every six beats due to its 2.5Hz vibrational speed. The tourbillons he made for Urban Jürgensen are revered, and in particular the models with a remontoir mounted on the tourbillon cage. By placing his remontoir wheel directly on the escapement wheel, Pratt was able to use this energy source to impulse the balance, thus removing it from the mainspring’s direct influence.

The Reuleaux triangle revolves within a two-pronged fork that oscillates as the triangle rotates. This back-and-forth motion is mirrored by the remontoir anchor, to which the fork is attached. As the fork moves, the anchor unlocks one of the teeth on the remontoir stop wheel. Each time the remontoir stop wheel, driven by the cage, snaps forward, it tensions the remontoir spring. Image: Revolution ©

On the right of the barrel is a differential screw mechanism for the power reserve indicator. It comprises of a cone that is driven up the threads of a vertical screw when wound and as it rises, it pushes a feeler arm aside. This motion turns the indicator hand through the sector on the dial. Image: Revolution ©

Beyond its technical achievement, it is also one of the most beautiful micro-mechanical achievements in watchmaking history. But because of the complexity of placing it directly on the sensitive escapement wheel, it was believed to be impossible to miniaturize for a wristwatch made in series. Kari Voutilainen laughs as he reflects on this, “Everyone thought that it could not be done. But no single complication could pay better tribute to the modern history of Urban Jürgensen, so Andy and I knew we had to try.”

Says Andy Rosenfield, “It was because it was commonly believed to be almost impossible that we decided to pursue this exact goal. This is the prevailing philosophy we decided on at Urban Jürgensen — to make a meaningful contribution to authentic horology. What better way to relaunch the brand than this?”

Says Kari Voutilainen, “The challenge was very significant, in particular, because the remontoir wheel is co-axial to the escapement wheel. You have to be extremely careful with the tolerances so that both are able to turn freely and don’t upset each other. On the size of a pocket watch, that is already difficult — but for a wristwatch, and to mount these wheels on a cage, it was extremely hard.”

Says Rosenfield, “Our objective is not to be an independent watchmaker creating 50 watches or fewer a year, but to create our timepieces at the highest quality and at enough scale to have a real presence in the coming years.”

Watch lovers looking at the halcyon movement architecture of the UJ-1 will see that it is directly inspired by Derek Pratt’s Oval Pocket Watch made for Urban Jürgensen. It is said that this legendary timepiece, which was sold at a Phillips auction last November for over $4 million, was, in turn, inspired by an oval pocket watch made in 1822 by Breguet. The movement of the Oval Pocket Watch, even in the lexicon of the earlier Urban Jürgensen tourbillon pocket watches, is unique. It features a stunning flying barrel, unencumbered by a bridge or plate, and a single beautifully black-polished horizontal steel bridge that traverses the movement with the dynamism of a Brâncuși sculpture. There is, of course, Pratt’s famous tourbillon with cage-mounted remontoir, but it is here in a flying configuration, with no bridge seeming to connect it to the movement. The Oval Pocket Watch is a timepiece that Kari Voutilainen knows well as it was delivered to him in a box of parts from which he assembled and finished the watch.

Derek Pratt Oval Pocket Watch. Image: Revolution ©

Read: A Closer Look: Derek Pratt Oval Pocket Watch

Says Voutilainen, “I worked with Peter Baumberger quite a lot in the ’90s, helping to restore clocks and watches. With Urban Jürgensen, I even helped him with the prototypes of the early wristwatches, such as the Series 1 to 3. When Derek fell sick, Peter and Derek chose to have me assemble and finish the Oval Pocket Watch. So, when I discussed our first watch with Andy and Alex, our mutual decision to create a tribute to this timepiece was very natural.”

Kari Voutilainen (left) and Alex Rosenfield (right)

The resulting timepiece, the UJ-1, is a living, beating, highly significant new chapter in watchmaking history. It also appeals tremendously from an aesthetic perspective. Measuring 39.5mm in diameter and 12.2mm in thickness, it is aligned with the prevailing taste for classic proportions. Its case is distinguished from the earlier UJ Series 1 to 3 cases with teardrop lugs by an additional step and a rotated orientation. The solid silver dial exhibits the very finest grain d’orge (or barleygrain) guilloché à main, as is expected from Voutilainen’s Brodbeck Guillochage. The flame-blued steel Breguet hands are refined and well executed, while the typography of the Roman indexes is lithe and elegant.

Image: Revolution ©

Says watch collector William Massena, “No one, since Blümlein and A. Lange & Söhne, has relaunched a brand with such an historically important timepiece. The UJ-1 to me is every bit as significant as Lange’s Pour le Mérite Tourbillon. What I love is that Andy, Alex and Kari really delved into the most salient and crystal-clear expression of what Urban Jürgensen should be, and even surpassed what I feel were already extremely high expectations amongst the collector community. The only disappointment, from what I predict, is that within moments of the launch all 75 of these watches will be sold out.”

Says Alex Rosenfield, “Because of our relatively low production, we hope to have demand that exceeds our current production capacity for our watches. But it is important to all of us that Urban Jürgensen always feels inclusive and treats clients with respect. We are happy to interact with collectors and the global communities.

“We recognize the frustrations that small-volume independent brands can create by virtue of their limited production. We really want to try to invite as many people into our family as possible while balancing the need to honestly explain the timing it may take to get a watch and the reasons for that wait.” Rosenfield, whose background is in fashion and media, was responsible for crafting the entire visual identity and branding of the reborn Urban Jürgensen.

He says, “We want every aspect of our identity to feel welcoming. We did our launch in Los Angeles because that’s where my family and I live much of the year. We want to express the relaxed and easy sensibility of LA and how that fits in combination with really ambitious watchmaking.

“Wearing a beautiful handmade watch does not need to be formal or stuffy and that is what UJ represents. There is a wonderful internationalism about Urban Jürgensen. He was a second-generation Danish watchmaker who apprenticed with Breguet in France and John Arnold in England. His wife, Sophie, was Swiss and the daughter of another legendary watchmaker, Jacques-Frédéric Houriet. Later, the custodians of the brand become Peter Baumberger and Derek Pratt, who were Swiss and British, respectively. This sense of internationalism — the idea of taking the very best from all cultures and forming your own world from it — is at the center of who we are. We are excited for people to join us in this world.”

The UJ-2: Simply Time

The second watch for the new launch, the UJ-2 is, in its own right, an equally significant watch to the incredible UJ-1. Says Alex Rosenfield, “Our time-only UJ-2 is seemingly our simplest but is a wonderful and special mix of design and complication. As a brand, we, of course, want to speak to collectors with years of knowledge and experience. But at the same time, we want to engage with the vast world of watch-adjacent nascent collectors, people just coming into horology, or even people who are outside of this world entirely. To me, an amazing painting, like one by Mark Rothko, can speak to you in a profound way. You don’t need to know the history of his evolution from figurative painting to abstraction. You can still be moved by his color fields on a totally instinctive level. We want people from all walks of life, genders, and from different generations to see our watches, try them on and fall in love with them in this way as well.

Four stunning iterations of the Urban Jürgensen UJ-2, featuring an off-centred chapter ring, a small seconds at five o’clock, and a power reserve indicator at twelve. Image: Revolution ©

“We want to engage with people on every pathway and welcome them into Urban Jürgensen — because all roads to us are equally valid. It’s important that our customers find things they love but we also hope people who are not now or may never buy one of our watches find something creative, interesting and inspiring in what we make and how we communicate about it.” Regarding the stunning movement of the UJ-2, Kari Voutilainen and Andy Rosenfield began by discussing how to express the true character of Urban Jürgensen.

Says Voutilainen, “For the architecture, in particular the shapes of the Caliber UJ-2’s bridges, I was very inspired by the pocket watch movements made by Urban Jürgensen’s son, Jules, who was a talented watchmaker just like his father. I began to design the movement with these very unique shaped bridges that expressed this spirit.”

Urban Jürgensen UJ-2 in platinum with silver dial. Image: Revolution ©

Urban Jürgensen UJ-2 in rose gold with blue dial. Image: Revolution ©

But when it came to the escapement, Rosenfield was quick to point out to Kari that his double-wheel natural escapement design should be a signature for the brand. Says Andy Rosenfield, “The amazing thing about Urban was that he studied and worked with the best. Amongst these was Abraham-Louis Breguet, who created the first natural escapement. Kari improved greatly on that design and created a version of this and I felt that it would be incredible to have this, because of the connection between Jürgensen and Breguet. Fortunately, Kari agreed, and a variation on the Voutilainen escapement will become the signature UJ Caliber. We will use this double-wheel or natural escapement — which totally eliminates sliding friction — as a technical leitmotif in our watches, except for the UJ-1, which was inspired by Derek Pratt’s movement.”

Image: Revolution ©

The incredible movement is defined by its distinctive bridge architecture and a natural escapement in which two contra-rotating escape wheels alternately deliver direct, tangential impulse to the balance in both directions per cycle. Image: Revolution ©

The beauty of the UJ-2 on the wrist is decidedly pulse quickening. Says watch collector and renowned artist Wes Lang, who has ordered a rose gold and blue dial version of the UJ-2, “The timepiece just resonates with authenticity. The quality of everything — from the case to the amazing hand guilloché dial, to the elegance of the hands and soldered lugs — is just stellar. Then you turn the watch over, and you see the double-wheel escapement interacting with the oversized balance wheel beating at 18,000 vibrations, and you just get swept up in the beauty of everything.” The UJ-2 measures 39mm in diameter and 10.9mm in thickness. It features an offset center seconds with a power reserve indicator at 12 o’clock, and is made in in platinum or rose gold, with a choice of silver or blue dial for both metals.

The UJ-3: A Meeting of Great Minds

While a cursory look at the UJ-3 could lead you to characterize it as a discreet and elegant perpetual calendar watch, it is actually far greater than that. It marks the first collaboration between two of the most renowned horological minds today: the Finnish master Kari Voutilainen and the innovative Swiss genius Andreas Strehler. It may seem surprising that a Swiss-made watch from a brand founded by a Dane and now owned principally by an American family, owes its technical ingenuity to a gentleman from Finland and another from Switzerland. But to Alex Rosenfield, this is exactly the strength of Urban Jürgensen and the beauty of the UJ-3.

The Urban Jürgensen UJ-3 features a perpetual calendar mechanism with an instantaneous moonphase indicator that is accurate to a day in 14,000 years. Image: Revolution ©

Image: Revolution ©

Says Andy Rosenfield, “The idea of collaboration and learning from other watchmakers, and even immersing ourselves in different cultures, is at the core of Urban Jürgensen’s history. Urban Jürgensen himself was the very first watchmaker to create a true watch manufacture, borrowing from what he had learned from the likes of Breguet and also John Arnold. He was in constant correspondence with his father-in-law, the legendary Jacques-Frédéric Houriet. When he modernized his father [Jürgen]’s workshop, he did so with the help of three highly trained and government-financed Swiss watchmakers.”

The UJ-3 is powered by the UJ-2’s base caliber featuring the UJ Caliber which is a variation of Kari Voutilainen’s signature double-wheel natural escapement. But added to this is a perpetual calendar with a very unique instantaneous moonphase indicator accurate to an impressive one day’s deviation every 14,000 years — a groundbreaking innovation that is the work of Strehler. “The perpetual calendar is one of my favorite complications and one that was signature to Urban Jürgensen’s identity because of the ref 2 and 3,” explains Andy Rosenfield. So, when it came to the third watch in Urban Jürgensen’s inaugural launch, he naturally gravitated towards this complication. Essentially, this makes the UJ-3 the world’s first natural escapement perpetual calendar.

The UJ-3 caliber incorporates a leap year indicator on the barrel bridge. Image: Revolution ©

He continues, “If we were going to create a perpetual calendar, I knew that this would be an opportunity to collaborate with one of my favorite watchmakers, Andreas Strehler. I remember Andreas came to New York to meet me in my office there and I was introducing him to some friends. He was looking at a fossil of a dinosaur that one of my partners had on display, and they asked him what he was thinking. He lifted up his watch, the Lune Exacte, and said, ‘As the dinosaur lived 65 million years ago, and my perpetual calendar’s moonphase only needs to be corrected once every two million years, you would only need to have had it adjusted it 32 times since this creature was alive.’ That’s the way his mind works, and I love it.”

At 39mm in width and 13.9mm in height, the new watch wears very well on the wrist. It is made in platinum or rose gold, both with a black dial. As the leap year indication is needed only when adjusting the calendar, it has been placed on the back of the watch to retain a cleaner aesthetic for the dial.

Says Alex Rosenfield, “Our objective is simply to craft the most honest, innovative and beautiful watches to the best of our ability. We recognize that in an increasingly digital and dehumanized world, the most beautiful thing — and one we want to celebrate — is human skill. The way that manifests from the people who work on our watches into a watch with soul can be felt when you wear it. This talented team is overseen by our Chief Operating Officer, Venla Voutilainen — who is also Kari’s daughter in keeping with company’s history of both family ownership and family watchmaking. It takes 21 different craftsmen and 565 hours to complete a single example of our most basic watch. It takes 50 different operations to create a pair of our hour and minute hands, and in many cases four days to decorate one of our hand-guilloché dials.”

He continues, “Because of this, we are aware that our production will be limited, but we will work to grow it in a number of years. However, our limitation will always be that we won’t compromise on quality. Everything will be made to the exacting standards that Kari is known for and he will see to it that we do not let that slip in the quest to meet, what we hope, will be great demand for UJ watches. We are here to create the next chapter of the Urban Jürgensen legacy and we will take whatever time we need to create the best representations of his philosophy. Our motto is ‘Time Kept and Spent Beautifully.’ Time spent beautifully, to us, is crafting watches with the sole objective of perfection for the joy of doing so, and the pleasure that comes from wearing a watch built this way.”

And with that, the Rosenfield Family and Kari Voutilainen have just created one of the most powerful overtures in watchmaking history — a prelude to even greater things, and a moment I had the privilege and pleasure of witnessing firsthand.