The new MB&F HM11 Architect was inspired by Charles Haertling’s Brenton House from the 1960s
With four “rooms” and a flying tourbillon in the “lobby”, the house that Max Busser built is madcap watchmaking at its finest.
In partnership with The Hour Glass
MB&F playfully interpreted the blueprint of Charles Haertling’s Brenton House into four titanium cones and a one-minute flying tourbillon in the centre, all protected by a sapphire crystal “roof”. (Photo: Eric Rossier/MB&F)
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Maximilian Busser’s whims have sent his Horological Machines in some pretty wild directions. Over the last 18 years, MB&F’s HM collection has drawn inspiration from spaceships, jet engines, bulldogs, frogs, and more. Creating a watch inspired by architecture, then, would seem almost pedestrian, but anyone familiar with the independent brand will know that everything that comes out of the Geneva-based studio is united by a mission of upending traditional watch design.
So of course, the new HM11 Architect, recently unveiled at Dubai Watch Week, is unlike anything you’ve ever seen in horology. Design buffs, however, may recognise its unusual shape from Charles Haertling’s Brenton House in Boulder, Colorado. Also known as the Mushroom House (which, fun fact, made an appearance in Woody Allen’s Sleeper), it was made up of five barnacle-like pods for rooms and a garden in the middle.
MB&F playfully interpreted this blueprint into four titanium cones and a one-minute flying tourbillon in the centre, all protected by a sapphire crystal “roof”. The overall shape is relatively conventional for an Horological Machine since roundness generally belongs to MB&F’s Legacy Machines, but as with all HM models, the display is anything but ordinary.
Each conical “room” houses a different function. One holds the hours and minutes using 12 rod-mounted metal balls that radiate from the centre, not unlike the Nelson Ball Clock from Vitra. The lighter aluminum balls mark the quarter hours, while the rest are made from darker-coloured titanium. The aperture is rather tiny, so red-tipped hands help with legibility. In the next room we have a similar display for the power reserve, with an arrow and five balls that count down from 96 hours. A thermometer occupies the third room, a function that is rarely seen in modern watchmaking, but the brand cheekily notes is a common feature in homes. By using a bimetallic strip that expands when the temperature rises and contracts when it cools, the thermometer is entirely mechanical and does not require external energy output. It is available in Fahrenheit or Celsius.
In the final room sits a sapphire crystal crown. Its large size required eight gaskets — out of a total of 19 — to ensure water resistance up to depths of 20m. While the crown will let you adjust the time, it will not wind the watch, and this is where the HM11 Architect gets even more interesting. The entire case can be rotated so that you can choose which cone you want facing you when you’re wearing it, and it will lock in place every 45 degrees to prevent free spinning. Complete 10 full clockwise rotations and you will have fully wound the watch.
The X-shaped calibre is the brand’s 21st in-house movement and, seeing as it lacks a dial above it, is coloured in blue or red gold PVD. The HM11 Architect comes on a rubber strap in white for the blue model, and khaki green for the gold one, and is fastened with a titanium tang buckle. There will be just 25 pieces for each colourway.
