MB&F Horological Machine No.11 ‘Architect’: a wristwatch with four rooms

MB&F has unveiled the Horological Machine No.11 ‘Architect’, a timepiece built like a house. The MB&F HM11 Architect is priced at CHF 198,000

MB&F has unveiled the Horological Machine No.11 ‘Architect’, a new timepiece inspired by the architecture of the 1960s and 1970s.

Powered by a totally new movement, the 21st from the Swiss watchmaker, the HM11 Architect is built like a house, with four rooms, each of them featuring a different function. 

The highly complex case (42 mm diameter x 23 mm height) is made of titanium walls and a sapphire double-domed roof. The entire structure rotates on its foundations to deliver power directly to the barrel.

A central flying tourbillon, beating at a frequency of 2.5Hz (18,000 vibrations per hour), forms the heart of the house. From this spinning core, four symmetrical volumes reach outwards, creating the four parabolic rooms of the house that is HM11 Architect.

Plates and bridges are coloured with a physical vapour deposition (PVD) process, coming in ozone blue or the warm solar hues of 5N gold, limited to 25 pieces each for the two launch editions of HM11.

The entire structure rotates on its foundations. The 90° angle of offset between each room means that you can position HM11 with one of its rooms directly facing you or with one of the corridors of the house running towards you and rooms obliquely to each side. This versatility in display orientation also has a practical use. 

HM11 Architect is an energy-efficient construction. Each 45° clockwise turn is signalled by a tactile click under the fingers and delivers 72 minutes of power directly to the barrel. After 10 complete rotations, HM11 is at its maximum autonomy of 96 hours.

While all four rooms share a similar interior — glossy white walls with a full sapphire crystal window pane — each has a different function.

The time room is where you go to retrieve the hours and minutes. Rod-mounted orbs serve as hour markers, using larger and lighter polished aluminium orbs for each quarter and smaller and darker polished titanium orbs for the rest. Red-tipped arrows point to the hours and minutes.

The next room, 90° to the left, is where the power reserve display resides. Following the design schema established by the time room, rod-mounted orbs are paired with a red-tipped arrow to show how much running autonomy is left in the HM11 barrel. Proceeding clockwise, the five orbs increase in diameter until the final polished aluminium orb, 2.4 mm in diameter, indicating the full 96 hours of power reserve.

An instrument rarely seen in horological contexts is installed in the next room — a thermometer. HM11 uses a mechanical system of temperature indication with a bimetallic strip, which may seem quaint in this age of instant high-precision electronic thermometers and thermostat-regulated smart homes. This mechanical system functions without any external energy input and is available in Celsius or Fahrenheit display variations.

The last room features a tiny round badge engraved with the MB&F battle-axe motif, set into the sapphire-crystal window that offers an unimpeded view directly into the movement. This is the time-setting crown of HM11. Close to 10 mm in diameter, it opens with a click. 

To protect the watch from dust and water, two sets of gaskets are used. Toward the outer edge of the watch, a large low-friction gasket creates just enough of a seal to stop dust from entering via the sapphire-crystal window. A watertight gasket, much smaller in diameter, is located closer to the centre of the movement, surrounding the crown axis. A total of 8 gaskets are dedicated to the sapphire crown alone.

Ensuring the integrity of the case and the movement within are a total of 19 gaskets, necessitated by the complexity of the case and its various external components. The largest gasket used in HM11 Architect is of O-ring construction, shaped in all three dimensions and placed between the case and the bezel. Water resistance is guaranteed up to a pressure of 2 ATM (20 metres / 33 feet).

While the peripheral rooms of HM11 are surrounded by exterior walls of polished grade-5 titanium, the central atrium is open to the light, covered by a double-arched sapphire crystal roof. 

Paired with a white or khaki green rubber strap, the MB&F Horological Machine No.11 ‘Architect’ is priced atCHF 198,000 / Euro 207,000 / US$ 230,000 before taxes. mbandf.com