Anthony de Haas presents the new Zeitwerk by A Lange & Sohne

Today I would like to talk about the new sidewalk. But before we go to detail, let's take a little look back to history. And it all started around 1814 when the Dresden Court Watchmaker Goodcase was building a stage clock for the famous Dresden Zemper Opera House. And guess who helped him with that? Ferdinand Adolf Lange. They had challenges to overcome. Above the stage huge time indications. They wanted to have a digital time indication, a five minute clock and of course without noise. This clock inspired us to make the sidewalk. Of course we didn't want to make a five minute clock or watch around your wrist. It had to jump every minute. And of course exactly when the second hand comes to 60 or zero. Let's talk about the challenges we faced during the development of the sidewalk. Because to make a wristwatch with big numeral digital indications left and right, exactly like on your cell phone from left to right, requires big discs. And these big discs, they create another challenge. They have to be moved rapidly every minute because we wanted to jump when the second hand nears the 60 or the zero second. To move these discs you need a lot of energy. So you have a strong mainspring. That mainspring to move the disc was way too strong to power the escapement. The inspiration for the solution we found here in the Stumhaus, the main building. Because there still we have the master clock. It's a large pendulum and equipped with a remontoir system. We took the idea or the inspiration for the watch. So we built in the remontoir system to balance the huge power towards the escapement. Another advantage of this solution is the remontoir system defines the moment of jump. In this case after every 60 seconds. Today we have the new generation of Tidewerk over here. And although it may look very similar, let's check out the changes we've made. To start with of course that we didn't change the huge numerals for the and the minutes. But a point which we changed and not only the indication of the power reserve with the last segmentations in red. But it also indicates the double of the power reserve from the previous version from 36 to 72 hours. And then last but not least on the dial side the second hand dial is slightly bigger. If you look at the watch case which still has a 41.9 millimeters diameter and 12.2 millimeters thickness you see another push piece. And yes also this version is equipped with the hour adjustment system. Which means you can separately adjust the hours by pushing this push button. And it has the inverse action. What does that mean? We push the button nothing appears to be happening. But if you release the button then the numeral jumps to the next hour. And of course you see the crown where you can wind the watch. But also set the time every minute forward or backward. The watch we have now in pink gold with a beautiful black dial and in platinum caliber 043.6. That's the caliber number of the Let's take a close look. So here we have the twin barrels. Although you only see the upper one here. It's a patented system. It is in fact one of the six patents of this watch. Take a further look. We see the remontoir system which provides its power to the escapement. And that is a beautiful balance spring with the Breguet overcoil well hidden underneath a hand engraved balance cock. And now to the watchmaker's view. Yes underneath the dial. What's happening over there? You see the three discs. The hour disc, the tenths of the minutes and the units. And of course if you pull the crown you see now how the time setting is working. And you have the push piece for the separate hour adjustment. Curious now? Please come and take a look in one of your boutiques.