What are central tourbillons in watches and why are they so rare?

Tourbillons, once a practical mechanism that quietly performed its duty of neutralising the effect of gravity in pocket watches beneath the dial, have become the main attraction in modern fine watchmaking. While their practical utility has greatly diminished with the rise of wristwatches, tourbillons are now primarily valued for their kinetic beauty and revered for showcasing the artistry of watchmaking.

Indeed, these skills have advanced to such a degree that tourbillons now come in a variety of flavours: Extra-large, extra-thin, extra-fast, multi-axis, flying, and so on. Typically, you'll find them proudly displayed at the bottom of the dial, although there are plenty of examples that showcase them on the sides or at the top. (The Rotonde de Cartier Astrotourbillon even had one that moved around the dial.) But believe it or not, the rarest type of tourbillon are the ones mounted directly at the centre of the dial.

Given the appealingly visual position of such a layout, one might wonder why more timepieces aren't crafted this way. The reason is simple: It’s just that hard to. Placing the tourbillon in the centre necessitates rerouting the gear train, which transmits power from the mainspring to the escapement, and this reconfiguration still needs to keep the power transmission efficient while making room for the central tourbillon. The hands will also need to be moved elsewhere, and special gears and intermediate wheels may also be needed to navigate around the central tourbillon cage, adding to the already complex construction of a tourbillon.

The first brand to figure this out was Omega. The De Ville Tourbillon was revealed in 1994 to celebrate the brand’s centenary. (Incidentally, it also happened to be Omega’s first serially produced tourbillon.) With the stunning complication taking centre stage, time-telling was achieved by mounting the hands on two sapphire discs driven by peripheral gearings hidden under the bezel.

Omega earned a patent for this landmark innovation. While it’s been almost a decade since the patent expired, central tourbillons have remained remarkably scarce. It speaks to the masochism required for this complication that one of the first names to be associated with it right after Omega was Beat Haldimann, an independent watchmaker who holds traditional techniques in such high regard that he eschews owning a CNC machine altogether. And even when brands do make them, they’re often in very limited or one-off editions, such as the unique Corum Bubble 47 made with watch customisation outfit Label Noir.

When they do show up with more regularity, it’s from brands that are historically obsessed with tourbillons, like Franck Muller and Roger Dubuis. After creating the world’s largest tourbillon, as well as the world’s fastest, Franck Muller’s wizardry with the wheel eventually extended to its Grand Central Tourbillon in 2021. Franck Muller has, in fact, three collections dedicated to the central tourbillon, with its latest novelty being the Curvex CX Grand Central Tourbillon Skeleton, recently unveiled at the 2024 World Presentation of Haute Horlogerie (WPHH).

Meanwhile, Roger Dubuis was debuting the Orbis in Machina Central Monotourbillon at Watches & Wonders Geneva in April this year. (The fact that the Genevan company dubbed it a “monotourbillon” is a subtly smug reminder that its watches have been known to hold as many as four tourbillons in a single watch.) The manual-winding RD115 was first seen in 2022’s Knights of the Round Table Monotourbillon — an extravagant amalgamation of art and horology that featured pink gold knights and shards of murano glass surrounding its star complication. The Orbis in Machina is a more subdued presentation in pink gold and dark grey, but still captivates with its multi-layered dial construction. Here, too, we see the use of hands mounted on rotating discs to indicate the hours and minutes.

There have been more creative solutions for time indication. The Bvlgari Octo Roma Central Tourbillon Papillon has a jumping hour display at 12 o’clock, with the minutes read off a track at the bottom. Though it looks like a retrograde minute system, it actually uses two satellite hands that take turns travelling along the minute arc, with the inactive hand flipping 90 degrees as it moves along the top half so as not to obscure the hour digits as it passes. A sportier version, the Octo Roma Striking Tourbillon in black DLC titanium, was added to the collection last year.

Time-telling has never been traditional at HYT, so incorporating a central tourbillon to its use of fluids just adds to the visual feast. The HYT Conical Tourbillon collection features a retrograde hour indicator that uses fluids propelled by bellows inside a borosilicate capillary tube, while the minutes are shown using a small arrow attached to a revolving ring between the tourbillon and hours. Depending on the model, small, coloured spheres mounted around the periphery of the tourbillon also rotate at different speeds, creating a hypnotic spectacle that reminds us that time tracking at this level of horology really isn’t the point.

Very often, the point is beauty and ingenuity. And there are brands that have used the central tourbillon as an opportunity to go big on those fronts. Hublot’s first central tourbillon was unveiled in its latest Only Watch offering, the MP-15 Takashi Murakami Only Watch Sapphire, with a full sapphire crystal case in the shape of the Japanese artist’s famous flower motif and set with a wash of rainbow gemstones. Even the non-auction version of the watch (without gemstones) feels like wearable art.

MB&F’s recent vision for the complication involves building a “house” around it, as the HM11 Architect was inspired by Charles Haertling’s “Brenton House”. The reverse-rotation flying tourbillon is surrounded by four conical “rooms”, housing the crown, hours and minutes, power reserve indicator, and mechanical thermometer respectively. It is also the first watch in the world to allow winding of the watch by rotating the entire case on its base and turning the case 90 degrees will power the watch for two and a half hours.

In a market bloated with beautiful tourbillons, it is both reassuring and deeply pleasurable in knowing there are still expressions of it that continue to expand the limits of imagination. If Abraham Louis Breguet, the inventor of the tourbillon, were alive to see it evolve into the horological pageant it is today, he would surely be thrilled at how modern watchmakers have found a way to make it be the very centre of attention.