Truth be told, the dwelling in the field next to Cartier’s giant, ultra-modern, glass-walled watch manufacturing facility situated in the UNESCO world heritage site and watchmaking town of La Chaux-le-Fonds in Switzerland’s Neuchâtel canton was, until recently, just another run-of-the-mill Bernese-style farmhouse built in 1872.
Of course, that was until a few years ago, when the iconic French luxury brand acquired the field and the farmhouse in question, and transformed this into a centre for artisans whose crafts are used to produce some of the finest horological pieces out there.
Officially opening its doors in the fall of 2014, Maison des Métiers d’Art is now the base of operations for an esteemed group of craftspeople who work on several floors of the completely redesigned house in an unusual open-space plan designed to encourage exchanges of information between these very skilled artisans.
The snug atmosphere evokes a beehive, Cartier says, and encourages periods of great concentration, exchanges about traditional techniques and the development of specific tools. On the various floors are jewellery craftsmen of gem-setters, jewellery smiths, polishers, granulators, experts at enamelling, dial making, as well as stone mosaic and everyone else involved in the delicate ornamental work of twisted gold, silver and various other fine materials.
Yes, this new-age workshop is a key part of Cartier’s effort to emphasise the artistic side of fine watchmaking via traditional and unusual crafts to create masterpieces that combine high art and high horology. Perhaps for the benefit of non-French speakers amongst us, ‘Métiers d’Art’ simply translates to ‘Masters of Art’.
And since watches so labelled are made using age-old traditional techniques, they require many hours of painstakingly difficult, carefully executed labour to complete and are destined for the watch world’s top collectors. Therefore, Cartier’s Métiers d’Art maintains its meticulously curated portfolio and impeccable production process by defining itself as having only three missions.
First is to preserve: Cartier educates its craftsmen here on techniques not encountered anywhere else. The second is to share: the craftsmen here work on products together, from watchmaker and jeweller to gem setter and enameller. The final mission is to innovate: from the first pilot’s wristwatch to the deployant buckle, innovation runs in Cartier’s blood and it’s not planning to let go of this any time soon.
While the facility’s 350-square metre ground floor once sheltered farmers and cattle alike, today it holds another significance entirely. Cartier’s architects and interior designers took inspiration from the first rural watchmaking workshops of Switzerland, where locals would flock in the harsh winter months to make extra money producing watch components. So, the space now combines the old and new, with traditional wooden furnishings and stone floors meeting vast sheets of glass bringing in plenty of natural light.
The architects that Cartier commissioned went in search of old wooden panels for walls and ceilings from the local area, seeking out natural stone from historic fireplaces. This was skillfully combined with starkly modern materials, from the steel-open staircase to the glass elevator. It’s also full of quirks; take the neo-Gothic chandelier in and airy room opening out to the garden, for example, once the property of Yves Saint Laurent and purchased by former Cartier CEO Bernard Fornas.
On the first floor, gems glitter as jewellery watches come to life. Many play on Cartier’s hallmark panther, and the silhouettes are first sketched out by hand, then after producing a paper prototype, a wax sculpture is created. This is turned into precious metal either using traditional moulding or by computer – the latter involves 3D printing with a special wax.
Once the shape is moulded, gem-setting is done by hand. And after marking the spaces where the gems can go, the holes for the gems are set. Glue is strictly forbidden in the process. Thus, with the utmost precision, the artisan carve grooves into the diamond to create a floating effect when attached to the watch. Some of the stones Cartier’s specialists work with measure a mere 0.6 mm in diameter.
Meanwhile, the first floor of the Métiers d’Art is also where some of Cartier’s most unique watches are manufactured, like the much-lauded Masse Mystérieuse. Exquisite skeletonised models like the Santos de Cartier and Pasha de Cartier are also created here as well.
The ancient art of filigree also takes place here, and this involves artisans carefully fashioning fine gold or silver wires to create patterns comprising tiny curled rings, then soldered together to create a motif. Cartier builds upon this by adding in materials like platinum and diamonds. Done entirely by hand, working with Cartier’s specially produced micro-wires requires the utmost dexterity and skill, and creating one dial alone easily takes a whole month.
Gold filigree, gold bead granulation and engraving are also important practices in Cartier’s repertoire of expertise. But gold bead granulation presents particularly challenging hurdles, not least because the artisan works with both gold balls, crafted from a long gold rod, and a gold baseplate. As gold components have the same melting point, Cartier worked with the Louvre Museum in Paris to discover how ancient Etruscans changed the melting point of the metal and keep all gold components intact.
Meanwhile, Cartier’s gorgeous enamel watch dials are created in the wooden loft of the Métiers d’Art. The atmosphere here is serene, aside from the scraping and whirring of various tools.
The dials are also full of artisanal interplay, and some use marquetry – the craft of applying pieces of veneer to a structure forming a decorative pattern. This skill involves taking pieces of straw and placing a 24-carat gold leaf in the middle. The wooden parts are then scraped away to reveal various shades of wood alongside glints of gold.
To think that a few hundred of years ago, the straw used to create such resplendent pieces of horological art was actually fed to cattle. Now, the chronicle of this Swiss farmhouse has definitely been totally transformed; its destiny today is to breathe new life into ancient preserved crafts from across the millennia, as Cartier steadfastly combines proud heritage and outstanding innovation to bring a new level of luxury into the future.
