In avant-garde watchmaking, Vianney Halter is one of the founding fathers. This style of watchmaking began in the mid- to late-1990s, particularly with Vianney Halter, Urwerk, and the Harry Winston Opus collection. All three laid the groundwork for a whole generation of unusual designs, complications, and ultra-futuristic aesthetics.
Today, we’re focusing on Halter’s contribution to these early days in the avant-garde watchmaking movement – the Antiqua. An unusual perpetual calendar with a round-not-round case, the Antiqua has aged like a fine wine. It feels as novel today as it was more than 25 years ago at the time of its release in Baselworld 1998. Legendary in modern independent watchmaking, we’re diving into the Antiqua and what makes it an icon.
The Icon – Unpacking the Antiqua
The Antiqua remains one of the most striking perpetual calendars in watchmaking. The timepiece’s full calendar – time, date, day, month, leap-year indication – is broken into four separate dials. Here, we observe time (hours and minutes) in the top-right, date in the bottom-right, month with leap-year indicator in the bottom-left, day in the top-left. While the design is obviously far outside the norms of “traditional” perpetual calendar, the Antiqua’s layout of separate indications can be viewed as an upgrade for legibility. In our minds, we tend to separate different measures of time – time of day, date, day, month – into their own individual entities. Here, we observe each unit visualized in that manner with its own compartment.
As unusual as the dial layout for the Antiqua is, the case matches with its shape and steampunk aesthetic. Somewhat round, somewhat square, the Antiqua is retro-futurism to the max with its portholes and rivets. One aspect of the case that provides much of its character is that three of the four subdials break past the barrier of the round case’s outer edge. Such a complex case requires its fair share of components – 130 to be exact. 104 rivets are used in total, adorning the porthole-like subdials and polished by hand.
Caliber VH198 powers the Antiqua. It is based on Lemania 8810 with significant modifications. All-new baseplate and bridges to go alongside a redesigned perpetual calendar mechanism to meet the demands of the dial layout as well as the timepiece’s “mysterious mass” automatic-winding system. One of Halter’s patents, the “mysterious mass” rotor hides its mass behind a ring along the periphery of the exhibition caseback. Without any clear connection to the central rotor, it’s easy to think that this is a manual-wind timepiece at quick glance.
One thing to clarify here, “steampunk” is often very loosely tossed about in the watch industry. In large part, this is because steampunk aesthetics are very close to general watchmaking aesthetics – things are mechanical, old-timey, yet futuristic. In the case of the Antiqua, it is considered steampunk specifically because Halter sought to design and create a timepiece that could live in an alternate timeline in history. Particularly, history if it developed along the aesthetic lines of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells – where computers are mechanical, airships exist, and everyone wears goggles. The Antiqua is a watch for a steam-powered, contemporary Wild West.
What makes the Antiqua iconic
One of the things about the Antiqua is that its status as an icon of modern independent watchmaking nearly speaks for itself. More than twenty five years removed from its arrival, we still marvel at its form, the innovativeness of the design, the cohesion of the steampunk aesthetic. It works so well that it is astounding. There is a somewhat less obvious reason why the Antiqua occupies a special place in watchmaking though.
One, steampunk is actually by no means the most popular aesthetic in avant-garde watchmaking. There are very few other watches that occupy such a thorough “mechanics in the Wild West” look. Even when the entirety of steampunk is premised on mechanics and exposed gears, as previously mentioned, a majority of avant-garde timepieces tend to find their inspiration in space travel and more “classical” sci-fi aesthetics. The Antiqua, even after all the time since its release, still sits at the pinnacle of steampunk in watchmaking. This is honestly somewhat surprising to us, but plays a major role in solidifying the Antiqua as an iconic timepiece for avant-garde watch collectors.