The Prix Gaïa is the only award of its kind to honor men and women who have dedicated their career to the measurement of time. Presented for 25 years, the Prix Gaïa has become a benchmark distinction in the vast field of time measurement and is awarded to craftspeople, manufacturers, and researchers. Recently, URWERK co-founders Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei won the ‘Gaïa’ prize by the Musée International d’Horlogerie in La Chaux-de-Fonds. To celebrate this historical milestone, the brand has named its one-off URWERK UR-102 Gaïa.
URWERK’s UR-102 “Gaïa”, a one-of-a-kind creation designed for the Only Watch 2021 Charity auction, will be auctioned on November 6th, 2021 to fund research into Duchenne muscular dystrophy. While several of the watchmakers taking part in Only Watch 2021 have turned to historical timepieces for inspiration, all have created new watches for the biennial charity auction, except for URWERK. Instead, the watchmaker retrieved an original example of the UR-102, initially launched in 1997, to create the Gaïa, named after the industry prize URWERK’s founders received in 2020. The URWERK UR-102 Gaïa preserves the aluminum case and movement of the original along with a wandering hours display, but its platinum back has been lacquered in dark blue with tiny speckles that call to mind the night sky, “symbolizing URWERK’s unswerving resolve to reach for the stars.”
For URWERK’s most recent release, check out the UR-105 TTH.
