2009 Momentum - Glashütte Original

Momentum 

MAGAZINE FOR CONTEMPORARIES 

Time for a change of scenery 

Off the wall 

1·2009 

S P R I N G

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The employees of Glashütte Original 

Dear readers, 

U 

se what we learn from the past to shape the future with confidence – that is 

one motto of our idol in this issue of Momentum, Franz Josef Radermacher. 

This foresighted gentleman, a member of the Club of Rome and co-founder of 

the Global Marshall Plan Initiative, gives us his prognosis for the future of 

humanity; he believes that through continuous learning – but also unlearning – and getting 

involved we can help create a better future. One country that seems to be doing it right 

is Norway, the land of peace and plenty. On pages 18 to 23, we invite you to explore this 

Scandinavian country of happy inhabitants who embrace both their traditions and the 

advances of modernity. 

All those who are interested in the fine art of watchmaking can enjoy a look through 

the magnifying glass at the sapphires and rubies used to produce high-quality watches. 

Without the continuous development of these two materials, watches would not be as 

precise, robust and graceful as they are. For more information, see pages 28 to 32. 

This issue also presents our latest timepieces, which we will be showcasing at Baselworld, 

the leading international trade fair for watches and jewellery, in March and April of this year. 

We hope you enjoy the first Momentum of 2009. 

The Glashütte Original team 

Eleventh issue Editorial 

Momentum 1· 2009 3

Cover by Deborah Bowness Wallpapers 

4 

Spectrum Contents 

Spectrum Momentum 

08 

INTERVIEW 

Prof. Franz Josef Radermacher is a very busy 

man. Not only is he a futurology researcher, 

he is also a member of the Club of Rome and 

a co-founder of the Global Marshall Plan 

Initiative. In conversation with a visionary 

UP TO DATE 

CULTURE NEWS ............................................................................................06 

Events worth seeing and experiencing across the world 

ICON 

“TIME IS THE FINAL RESOURCE” .........................................................08 

An interview with future-oriented intellectual Prof. F. J. Radermacher 

MOMENTS 

KEEPING TIME WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD .............................14 

Time on our planet is carefully ordered into 24 time zones 

TIME ZONES 

LAND OF PEACE AND PLENTY .................................................................18 

How Norwegians have combined their traditions with modern advances 

TIME TO TIME 

NEWS FROM GLASHÜTTE ORIGINAL ...................................................24 

Sport Evolution Impact, new products at Baselworld 2009, culture news 

TIME STUDY 

CRYSTAL CLEAR ............................................................................................28 

Synthetic rubies and sapphires – beautiful gems born of human ingenuity 

Momentum 1· 2009 

1·2009 

14 

UNIVERSAL TIME 

When the International Meridian Confe - 

rence took place 125 years ago it divided 

the planet into time zones – and brought 

order to our chaotic timekeeping 

TIME FLOW 

OFF THE WALL .. ....................................................................................34 

Artists and designers are rediscovering the creative potential of wallpaper 

TENDENCE 

DREAMTIME ...................................................................................................40 

How do we experience time when we dream? 

TIME TO STYLE 

18 

NORWAY 

A country of legendary beauty, inspiring 

culture and happy people – a portrait of a 

land of positive headlines 

JUST FOLLOW YOUR NOSE ......................................................................44 

How perfumers enliven the senses with their exclusive fragrances 

MOMENTS IN TIME 

FACTS & FIGURES .......................................................................................48 

Astounding, alarming, extraordinary... 

SEQUENCE 

ONE WAY TO HUNT .....................................................................................49 

Hunters on the Indus River really use their heads

34 

WALLPAPER 

Designers from all over the world are 

leading us out of the dark ages of 

woodchip as they create works of art 

for our walls 

28 

SAPPHIRES & RUBIES 

Synthetic rubies and sapphires 

that cleverly imitate nature play 

an important role in watch 

movements and dials 

24 

MASTERPIECES 

Hardwearing, reliable and sporty: the two 

models of Glashütte Original’s Sport 

Evolution Impact range. Also: Momentum 

presents the products to be featured at 

Baselworld 2009 

44 

PERFUMERS 

Perfumers are olfactory artists who distil 

dreams into reality and satisfy their clients’ 

desire for individuality

Up to Date Culture 

Holland Art Cities 

A new cultural extravaganza in 

the Netherlands claims to be 

showcasing “more art and culture 

per square mile than any 

other country on earth.“ The 

organizers of Holland Art Cities 

are hoping to attract hordes 

of visitors from all over the 

world to the 20 exhibitions on 

display at ten museums in Amsterdam, 

Rotterdam,The Hague 

and Utrecht. The festival, which 

continues into 2010, is taking 

on three main themes:“International 

Influences”, “Modern 

and Contemporary Art and 

Design” and “Dutch Masters”. 

Pablo Picasso, Sibylle, 1921, 

Gemeentemuseum, The Hague 

HOLLAND ART CITIES, EXHIBITIONS AT TEN MUSEUMS IN AMSTERDAM, ROTTERDAM, THE HAGUE, 

UTRECHT. 2009/2010. FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO SEE THE EVENT PROGRAMME, VISIT 

WWW.HOLLAND.COM/HAC 

As much Handel 

as you can handle 

This year marks the 250th anniversary 

of the death of George Frideric 

Handel, and the city of Halle is celebrating 

its most famous son with a year of 

concerts and cultural events. The high 

point on the city’s 2009 calendar is the 

Handel Festival in June. The festival’s 

patron is none other than Her Majesty 

Queen Elizabeth II. The British are 

particularly big fans of the Baroque 

composer – after all, he spent a large 

part of his life in London. Guests this year 

will be treated to a feast of Handel’s operas, including 

Floridante, Rodelinda, Alcina, Serse, 

Ariodante and Belshazzar. 

Around the world in 30 millennia 

This beautifully designed book is thick and heavy – as it might 

well be, since it contains the artistic endeavours of 30,000 years 

of art history. This collection of major works of art from all cultures 

and peoples provides a fascinating overview of humanity’s 

creativity from the earliest cave paintings to Chinese brush 

painting to the drip style of Jackson Pollock. 

30,000 YEARS OF ART, EDITORS OF PHAIDON, €49,95 

C U L T U R E +++ W O R L D W I D E +++ C U L T U R E +++ W O R L D W I D E +++ C U L T U R E +++ W O R L D W I D E +++ 

goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film, Wiesbaden, Germany, Caligari-FilmBühne and Villa Clementine, 22–28 April 

2009, www.filmfestival-goeast.de +++ Dragon Boat Festival, Hong Kong, 28 May 2009, info: www.discoverhongkong.com 

+++ Richard Wagner’s Ring, Metropolitan Opera, New York, 27 April to 2 May, 4–9 May 2009, info: www.metoperafamily.org +++ 

HALLE HANDEL FESTIVAL, 4–14 JUNE 2009, HALLE, GERMANY, 

VARIOUS VENUES. INFORMATION, PROGRAMME AND TICKETS: 

WWW.HAENDEL2009.COM 

Great minds, 

great faces 

Photographer Peter 

Badge spent eight 

years following all the 

surviving Nobel Prize 

winners. The result is 

this 18 lb volume of 

photographs. Nobels 

features intimate 

portraits of worldfamous 

scientists, 

writers and other eminent personalities like Kofi Annan, 

Nelson Mandela (photo) and John Nash. Badge’s photographs 

of Nobel laureates relaxing on the sofa or lounging by the 

pool in goggles provide unexpected insight into the lives of 

these extraordinary men and women who have helped shape 

global history – proving that they are ordinary people too. 

NOBELS –NOBEL LAUREATES PHOTOGRAPHED BY PETER BADGE, 304 PORTRAITS, 

622 PAGES, €139, WILEY-VCH, WWW.WILEY-VCH.DE 

Photos: Picture Alliance, Tilman Korn

Photos: Imago, Getty, Picture-Alliance (3) 

8 Momentum 1· 2009 

Icon Franz Josef Radermacher 

“Time is the 

final resource” 

Prof. Franz Josef Radermacher is a member of the Club of Rome 

and a co-founder of the Global Marshall Plan Initiative. 

The progressive thinker looks into the future and explains why he 

believes in humanity’s ability to shape it to our common benefit 

Interview Maike Zürcher 

Prof. Radermacher, would you say that you are a visionary? 

Yes, I’d call myself a visionary. 

What is it that makes you a visionary? 

Typically, a visionary can imagine things that do not exist as yet. 

In my case these things tend to be future developments that could 

benefit humankind. My background and interests lie in mathematics 

and computer science, and these are disciplines that often address 

hypothetical ideas and constructs. I think this puts me in a good 

position to dream up the sort of things one expects of a visionary. 

You are an active member of the Club of Rome, which was founded 

in 1968. What are the fundamental differences between how the 

world is today and how it was back then? 

The situation back then was by no means simple, but it was a 

good deal more manageable than it is today. The population of 

the world was less than 65 percent of what it is now, and our consumption 

of resources was decidedly more modest. There was 

also a general consensus that cooperation between North and 

South was necessary and that nation states had an important role 

to play in this regard. Because of the East-West conflict, market 

fundamentalism was unable to assert itself. And half of the world 

wasn’t even participating in global economic processes or growth. 

For many reasons, ecological and sociological approaches were 

more widespread back then. Yet there was also the very real threat 

of war between East and West and of Armageddon. So the world 

was a very different place in 1968. 

What is the Club of Rome particularly concerned with at the moment? 

The Club of Rome addresses topics of the day that concern our 

future development, taking a systematic, integrated approach. This 

is something it has always done. It regards the problems currently 

being experienced by the global financial system as confirmation 

that its stance is the correct one. The crisis is due to inadequate 

governance around the world, and more importantly, to the prev - 

ailing market-based approach to questions of the economy and 

global development. What we need instead is a global market 

economy based on ecological and sociological principles that 

incorporates closer cooperation between North and South. More 

stringent rules need to be applied to the exploitation of natural 

resources and raw materials; we must cross-finance development; 

we must concentrate on the United Nation’s Millennium Develop - 

ment Goals; and we must work to establish a balance and understanding 

between the world’s major cultures. 

You were one of the founders of the Global Marshall Plan Initiative. 

Was there a specific reason behind its inception? 

The foundation of the Global Marshall Plan Initiative was a result


9



“One can only understand the potential of the future 

after one has learned something from the past” 

Top left: Dr. Aurelio Peccei – in 1968 the Italian scholar founded the Club of Rome with Scottish-born scientist Alexander King. 

Top right: German president Horst Köhler (left) with Eberhard von Koerber, co-president of the Club of Rome, on 6 November 2007 at 

a globalization conference in Schloss Bellevue, the presidential residence. Bottom left: Another participant at the conference – 

Ashok Kosla, co-president of the Club of Rome. Bottom right: Prof. Eduard Prestel (left), Dr. Aurelio Peccei (centre) and Prof. Mihajlo 

Mesarovic (right) at the general assembly of the Club of Rome on 14 October 1974 in Berlin

of various groupings in civil society, including the Club of Rome, 

coming together and realizing that a practical plan had to be laid 

out if we were to achieve the objectives I described earlier; this 

plan would function as a guideline for the many committed individuals 

and organizations out there. The plan would have to 

demonstrate how to move forward into the future using various 

elements, some of which already enjoy broad international support. 

One such element is the fulfilment of the UN’s Millennium 

Development Goals by 2015. In 2000 an agreement to this effect 

was signed by 191 heads of state as part of the United Nations 

Millennium Declaration. 

The goals are very ambitious. In your opinion, is it better to set 

bold targets – in everyday life as well – or do you think it is better 

for morale to start with smaller, more easily attainable objectives? 

Yes, the goals are ambitious. Yet they are only the beginning. Of 

course it is simpler in everyday life to set more manageable goals. 

You might build a school, or campaign for better accessibility for 

people in difficult situations, or fight corruption. These are all 

important activities and the Global Marshall Plan supports all projects 

of this nature, such as those initiated by Rotary International. But we 

also believe that the problems facing our planet cannot be solved 

by concentrating on individual issues. Sometimes focusing too 

strongly on individual topics can lead to larger issues not receiving 

the attention they deserve. It is essentially the same as trying to 

solve the whole of the world’s problems starting with one person’s 

behaviour. 

Is idealism an important driving force behind progress, or are realism 

and pragmatism more useful? 

Idealism is an important driving force, but it is not the only one 

that matters. Some people are motivated more by idealism and 

altruism, others by taking a realistic and pragmatic approach. It is 

particularly helpful if the two stances are combined into what we 

call “insightful selfishness”. But both of them can be positive. It’s 

no coincidence that we work with the Global Ethic Foundation, 

an organization concerned with identifying the ethical principles 

that are common to all religions as well as to humanism. Many 

different things motivate people to do good. 

Are you a philanthropist; do you believe in the good in human beings? 

I believe that, in general, human beings are sociable and, above all, 

cooperative creatures. It is only thanks to our ability to cooperate 

that we have been able to survive as a species. One cannot change 

human nature, but we don’t have to. All we need is the right environment 

and the right conditions. Under those circumstances 

humans behave quite acceptably as a general rule. 

In which epoch of human history would you like to have been alive 

– which one would have been most interesting to you? 

Over the past four million years humanity has gone through a lot 

of different situations and experiences. I am particularly interested 

in looking at the various conditions under which we have lived in 

the past in order to gain a better understanding of our lives 

through out the ages to the present day. This goes as far back as our 

origins as a species and includes the development of our brain, 

language, intelligence, consciousness and technological capabilities. 

I am so curious to learn about all of this that I would actually like 

to have lived through all these epochs in one way or another. Of 

course, it would be better to do it from the safe perspective of today, 

perhaps by travelling through time and witnessing the particularly 

important events – from the comfort of a modern conveyance. 

What feelings do you have when you look into the future? 

In my opinion, the situation currently facing the people who live 

on this planet presents us with the challenge of remaining realistic 

under difficult circumstances. If we wish to overcome a problematic 

situation, we must first understand precisely what that situation is. 

We should know what our options are and what developments 

we might have to deal with. That is not a particularly pleasant prospect, 

even if our own personal situations are perfectly acceptable 

as yet. Crucial matters will be decided during the next 50 years, 

and the chances are good that I will have the opportunity to live 

through much of that time. If things start getting unpleasant, we 

cannot run away. That fact should motivate us to play an active 

role in shaping our futures positively. The chance of achieving 

this is not much more than 50 percent, but it is still a substantial 

one. There are good reasons to work together and steer the situation 

in our favour. Doing so will make life much more enjoyable. We 

can do a great deal for other people while benefitting ourselves 

at the same time. 

Some people have called you “a student of the future”. Has humanity 

really learned anything from the past that will help it do better 

in the future? Or are the challenges of the future so different as to 

make any amount of experience irrelevant? 

As I am a systems theorist and someone who explores the future, the 

future is something that naturally preoccupies me. However, I firmly 

believe that the future is linked to what has already happened. 

One can only understand the potential of the future after one has 

learned something from the past. And yes, of course, humankind 

learns from history, even though every individual starts afresh. The 

most obvious evidence of this is the governance systems that human 

beings have developed. We have translated our experience into 

structures that govern how we interact with one another and how 


11



Information 

Franz Josef Radermacher was born on 20 March 1950 in 

Aachen, Germany. He received a doctorate in mathematics from RWTH 

Aachen University in 1974 and a doctorate in economics from Universität 

Karlsruhe (TH). He concluded his postdoctoral research in 

mathematics at RWTH Aachen University in 1982. Today he is the 

head of the Forschungsinstitut für anwendungsorientierte Wissensverarbeitung 

at the University of Ulm, where he is also professor 

of databases and artificial intelligence. He is a member of the Club 

of Rome and president of the Federal Association for Economic 

Development and Foreign Trade (BWA). In 1993 he helped found the 

Global Marshall Plan Initiative. His most recent book addresses 

the topic of human survival in the 21st century and is called 

“Welt mit Zukunft – Überleben im 21. Jahrhundert”. Franz Josef 

Radermacher is married and has one grown-up son. 

------------------ 

The Club of Rome is a think tank founded by Aurelio Peccei 

and Alexander King in 1968 with the aim of promoting efforts to 

make our future sustainable and worth living. The Rome-based 

organization counts representatives from the worlds of science, 

culture, economics and politics among its members. Its central focus 

today is on sustainable development; it is calling upon the people 

of the world to change their consumption behaviour so that their 

needs and the needs of generations to come can be met by the 

limited supply of global resources. The Club of Rome thinks and acts 

globally and is opposed to monocausal and short-term thinking. 

It aims to persuade as many people as possible to live their lives in 

a more sustainable way. The club has 32 national associations, 22 

of which are in Europe. Each one is committed to realizing these 

objectives. In 1972 the Club of Rome published its influential report 

“Limits to Growth”, which provoked a furore around the world. Since 

then it has regularly produced reports on the global situation. 

------------------ 

The Global Marshall Plan was first devised by Al Gore in 

his book “Earth in the Balance”. In 2003 representatives of 19 civil 

society organizations came together in Frankfurt am Main to found 

the Global Marshall Plan Initiative. Its goals are to end poverty, raise 

environmental awareness and ensure its efficient implementation, 

and to promote health, justice and equality across the globe. In short, 

it aims to establish a global market economy based on ecosocial 

principles. The Global Marshall Plan Foundation has its headquarters 

in Hamburg. It is currently coordinating four main projects: The Global 

Contract Foundation (global-contract.org), which aims to establish 

international framework conditions that guarantee that the world 

economy functions for the collective good; The Global Marshall Plan 

(globalmarshallplan.org), which promotes a global market economy 

based on ecosocial principles; Global Commons (globalcommons.org), 

a virtual community for the exchange of views on global topics; 

and Plant for the Planet (plant-for-the-planet.org), where young 

people get together to plant trees and fight climate change. 

we organize our society; from democracy to the distribution of 

power, from the constitutional court of law to the public referendum, 

from laws that regulate the authority of governments to laws that 

limit the power of the police, we have learned so much and made it 

work in our favour. One thing that represents an obvious challenge 

is the astonishing speed at which the global population continues 

to grow and technology continues to develop. These two things 

make the future very new territory, because these conditions have 

simply never existed before. This makes our experience less 

authoritative. As a result, we will not only need to learn new things, 

we will have to unlearn some of what we already know. We will 

have to search for solutions while retaining our experience as a 

valuable point of reference. At the same time, we will need to do 

our best to understand the new things we encounter. That is what 

makes the situation so difficult. 

Do you think human beings have always faced unusual and unprecedented 

challenges or have some periods in human history been 

tougher than others? And what about the present day? 

Without a doubt, human beings have always faced unusual and 

unprecedented challenges. Some eras are, of course, objectively 

easier than others. The last 10,000 years or so have been special 

in that conditions have been changing systematically and rapidly, 

as I said – in some cases extraordinarily rapidly – especially with 

regard to our organizational abilities and our increasing population. 

A typical feature of this era is that there are too many people who 

want more than the world can actually give. But the size of the 

population has kept changing over the course of history, as have 

people’s desires and abilities. So we are always dealing with new 

issues, and our knowledge about what happened in the past, which 

we use to deal with these new issues, is constantly improving. 

Do you have a motto that reflects your views on time? 

My life has been characterized by a lack of time and a preoccupation 

with the future. Einstein once said that he spent a great 

deal of time thinking about the future because that is where he 

would be spending the rest of his life. I feel the same way. 

Another important thing I have learned is that time heals wounds, 

but that wounds also need time to heal. My motto could well be: 

“Time is the final resource”.

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Moments Universal time 

Keeping time with the 

rest of the world 

The world is divided into 24 time zones bordered by equidistant 

meridians, 15 degrees apart. The system is crucial to the way we 

understand time today, yet the whole thing came about simply 

because a man from Scotland wanted the trains to run on time 

By Norbert Misch-Kunert 

October 2009 marks the 125-year anniversary of the International Meridian Conference, which divided the world into 24 time zones

UTC + 12 | New Zealand 

The other side of the world from 

Greenwich: when it’s midday here, 

most Europeans are tucked up in bed 

Y 

our plane must have been a supersonic jet,” 

marvelled the son of my old friend from Boston 

as we turned onto the busy Interstate 90 from 

Logan International Airport. “I wish it had been,” 

I laughed. I would have gladly traded my eighthour 

journey from Germany for a supersonic 

flight in an X-15, but once again I had made the trip to New 

England in a bog-standard airbus travelling at a leisurely 545 mph. 

“But the flight only took you two hours,” insisted the little boy. 

He had clearly heard that my flight had left Frankfurt in Germany 

at noon and landed in Boston at 2 p.m. Of course, every adult 

knows that this means 12 and 2 p.m. local time, but how do you 

explain the concept of time zones to someone who is only just 

learning the difference between the big and little hand? It’s no easy 

task, since it involves explaining concepts like the Prime Meridian, 

lines of longitude and UTC – Coordinated Universal Time. It’s a 

long story, but maybe the best way to explain it is by starting with 

the classic “once upon a time”… 

Once upon a time there was a clever man called 

Sandford Fleming. He lived in Kirkcaldy by the Firth of Forth on the 

eastern coast of Scotland. At the age of 18 he emigrated to Canada, 

where he initially worked as a surveyor and then became a distin- 

UTC + 8 | Lombok 

Indonesia has three time zones and 

Lombok is right in the middle at 

UTC+8 

UTC + 11 | New Caledonia 

They may belong to France, but on 

these South Pacific islands the 

clocks are ten hours ahead of those 

back in Paris 

UTC + 7 | Bangkok 

In Thailand, the “Land of the Free”, 

the clocks are seven hours ahead of 

those in Greenwich 

UTC + 10 | Sydney 

Culture vultures in Sydney go to the 

opera ten hours before their counterparts 

in London 

UTC + 9 | Japan 

In the Land of the Rising Sun Japan 

Standard Time applies: UTC+9 

guished railway engineer and a founding member of the Royal 

Society of Canada. Now, in 1879 this clever Scotsman proposed 

the first system of time zones for standardizing international timekeeping, 

which he named “railway time”. In his work as a railway 

engineer, Fleming had constantly encountered problems due to 

the different times kept in the places along his routes. Every town 

had its own time as the clocks were adjusted according to the 

position of the sun in the sky: when the sun was at its highest, it 

was (more or less) 12 noon. With the introduction of telegraphy 

in the early 19th century, it became possible to set a single time 

for an entire country – usually the time in the respective country’s 

capital city. However, this meant that just over the border a different 

time was used. This was a huge administrative headache for railway 

companies, which had to write timetables for long routes spanning 

several countries, all of which had different times. Often it was only 

a matter of a few minutes, but these were enough to bring the 

whole timetable into disarray. 

The complexity of the situation is exemplified by an 

old clock tower in Geneva. In 1880 it had three clocks displaying 

three different times. The right-hand clock showed the time in 

Bern, which applied to all of Switzerland; the central clock showed 

the local time in Geneva, which was five minutes behind Bern, 

UTC + 6 | Bangladesh 

When it’s noon in Greenwich, in the 

“Country of Bengal” the big hand is 

pointing to the 6 

UTC + 5 | Pakistan 

The Islamic Republic is five hours 

ahead of UTC 


15


Moments Universal time 

UTC + 4 | Georgia 

South of the Greater Caucasus, you 

have to put your watch four hours 

ahead 

and the left-hand clock showed the time in Paris, which was 20 

minutes behind Bern – and the trains leaving Geneva for Paris ran 

according to Paris time. So it was clear that the world’s railways 

would benefit tremendously if the times could be standardized. 

Fleming’s proposal was that the world should be divided into 

large equal-sized sections – time zones – within which a uniform 

time would apply. 

Five years later, in October 1884, Fleming’s wish was 

granted. Representatives from 25 nations met at the Inter national 

Meridian Conference in Washington D.C. to determine the Prime 

Meridian – an imaginary line running from the North to the South 

Pole that would serve as the starting point for all the other equidistant 

meridians circling the planet. During the conference, a victor 

emerged from among the five proposed candidates for the Prime 

Meridian. This was the Greenwich Meridian, named after the Royal 

Greenwich Observatory on the outskirts of London. In many 

respects, the Greenwich Meridian seemed the obvious choice as 

it had long been the reference meridian for celestial navigation 

and nautical maps. Since 1880 it had also decided the official time 

in the United Kingdom – Greenwich Mean Time, which was now 

to become the basis for calculating the time across the whole planet. 

UTC -4 | Barbados 

Time moves at a different pace on 

the Lesser Antilles – four hours behind 

UTC 

UTC + 3 | Moscow 

Muscovites are getting ahead of 

Londoners – by three hours 

UTC -5 | Toronto 

When we’re gulping down our lunch 

in Europe, residents of Canada’s 

biggest city are still lingering over 

breakfast 

UTC +2 | Egypt 

The pyramids are timeless – so who 

cares about a couple of hours here 

or there? 

UTC + 1 | Berlin 

Modern Berlin is ahead of its time? 

Well, it’s one hour ahead of UTC, at 

least! 

After agreement had been reached on where to locate the Prime 

Meridian, the earth could be divided up into 24 equally sized time 

zones, defined as the area between two lines of longitude 15° 

apart. The time in each zone was one hour before or after that of 

its neighbouring zones. This made timekeeping much easier – and 

not just for the railways. 

However, the time zones only follow the meridians 

in theory. In practice, political boundaries and geographical facts 

have to be considered; time zones often ignore a meridian in 

favour of national borders. In principal each country belongs to 

one specific time zone, but larger countries can stretch over several. 

Australia, for example, has four separate time zones, Canada has 

five, the US has six and Russia, the biggest country on earth, 

covers a whopping eleven time zones. Even Indonesia has three, 

as its archipelago is widely dispersed from West to East. China 

constitutes a remarkable exception: with a breadth of over 2,600 

miles it actually spans five different time zones. Yet the whole of 

the People’s Republic has one official time, from the autonomous 

regions in the west to Manchuria in the far east and incorporating 

Hong Kong, Macau and even Taiwan. Chinese time is UTC+8 and 

is based on the geographical location of the country’s most impor- 

UTC -6 | Costa Rica 

On the lush strip of land between the 

Caribbean and the Pacific, the time is 

six hours behind UTC 

UTC -7 | Mexico 

The United States’ southern neighbour 

is three time zones wide, with 

the Gulf of Mexico seven hours behind 

Greenwich

UTC + 0 | Greenwich 

The mother of all time measurement: 

Greenwich Mean Time, later 

replaced by Coordinated Universal 

Time (UTC) 

tant centres, Shanghai and Beijing. This means that in the far east 

of China, solar noon – when the sun reaches its zenith – actually 

happens at 11 a.m. and does not come to the westernmost parts 

of the country until 3 p.m. 

The example of China demonstrates aptly that time 

zones are often designated for purely political or economic reasons. 

Nepal, for example, likes to distinguish itself from in its giant 

neighbour India, and thus its clocks are a quarter of an hour 

ahead. In 2007 Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez put the clocks 

back half an hour, partly to better reflect the country’s geographical 

location, but also to differentiate Venezuela from the rest of 

the continent. Time-zone hopping has also become popular: 

many countries put their clocks forward by an hour in spring and 

back again in autumn in order to save energy. Thus where the UK 

has GMT and British Summer Time, most of the rest of Europe has 

Central European Time (CET) and Central European Summer 

Time (CEST). The fact that a large area of Europe shares a single 

time means that Vardø in the extreme northeast of Norway experiences 

its solar noon at 10:53 CET while in Cape Finisterre in 

north-western Spain the sun doesn’t reach its zenith until 13:37 

CET. In Portugal, on the westernmost reaches of Europe, children 

UTC -8 | Los Angeles 

Wannabe movie stars arriving in 

Hollywood from London have to put 

their watches back eight hours 

UTC - 1 | Greenland 

Don’t forget to wrap up warmly in 

eastern Greenland – and set your 

watch back by an hour 

UTC -9 | Alaska 

No, the hands of your watch haven’t 

frozen – they’re just nine hours behind 

London time 

UTC -2 | On the Atlantic 

When yachting in the middle of the 

Atlantic, you’ll have to adjust your 

chronometer by two hours 

UTC -3 | Rio de Janeiro 

Brazil stretches across three time 

zones. Rio, in the east of the country, 

is three hours behind of UTC 

were going to school in the dark even in the summer until the 

country changed its time to match that of Ireland and the UK. 

When the clocks went forward in Cuba in spring 

2004 they stayed there – an energy crisis extended that year’s 

summer time until autumn 2006. There were also serious economic 

considerations behind Singapore’s decision to bring its clocks 

in line with Hong Kong time; the stock exchanges of both cities 

now open and close at the same time. A special solution had to 

be found for Antarctica as it stretches over all 24 time zones. The 

decision was made that UTC would apply across the entire continent. 

UTC is the new name for what was formerly known as 

Greenwich Mean Time. Unlike GMT, it is an atomic timescale – 

measured by atomic clocks as opposed to astronomical calculations. 

It is used across the world for navigating by air and sea, in 

scientific experiments, in amateur radio, on many internet portals 

and in e-mails. Even the clocks on the International Space Station 

(ISS) are set according to UTC. The ISS takes 91 minutes to orbit 

the earth – that’s an incredible 17,400 mph. And that, my dear 

young friend from Boston, is a much greater speed than even the 

swiftest jet aircraft could ever hope to achieve. ✺ 

UTC -10 | Hawaii 

Aloha and welcome to Hawaii! 

Please put your watch back ten 

hours 

UTC -11 | Samoa 

Appearances can be deceptive. The 

inhabitants of these idyllic isles 

love the rough and tumble of rugby 

– but kickoff is eleven hours earlier 


17

Time Zones Norway 


Not so icy after all – thanks to the Gulf Stream,

sea bathing and water sports are perfectly possible in Norway 

Land of peace 

and plenty 

By Ebba D. Drolshagen 

Norway has breathtaking scenery, is democratic, safe 

and peaceful – and has managed to bridge the gap 

between traditional and modern life. A portrait of a 

country that keeps inspiring positive headlines 


19 

Photos: Nancy Bundt, Per Eide, Johan Wildhagen for Innovation Norway, Getty, Roland Halbe/Arthur, Juvet


Above: A fascinating polar spectacle – 

the aurora borealis bathes the sky in magical colours 

Below: Norwegians truly love their country – 

and they prove it every year on 17 May, their national 

day. Hordes of schoolchildren carrying flags march 

past the palace and the waving Royal Family 


N 

orway is rich. Very rich. It doesn’t just have North Sea oil to thank for its 

wealth, but also the farsighted politicians of the 1960s who forced oil consortiums 

to sign contracts that kept Norway’s oil largely in the owner ship 

of the state. That is why, as of late 2008, the country had $310 billion tukked 

away in its piggy bank. And this money is invested in future generations; 

Norway is not keen on spending big bucks on weapons and prestige projects. 

Finance minister Kristin Halvorsen recently apologized to the public for having to spend 

money on combat jets. These are not just empty words: Norway was recently rated the 

most peaceful country on the planet. It has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize since 1901. The 

laureates are well known for demonstrating solidarity with the weakest members of society, 

often upsetting the status quo. And this is something Norway practices on a daily basis. It 

spends almost one percent of its GDP on foreign aid – far more than most countries. 

Germany, for example, donates just 0.37 percent, while the United States gives a meagre 

0.16 percent. So it’s understandable that Norway has such an excellent image abroad. 

The country’s geography is extreme. During high summer, the sun shines 24 hours a day; 

in the depths of winter it never shows its face. But often those endless nights are lit up by 

the magical aurora borealis. Norway’s most westerly point is on the same latitude as Amsterdam, 

yet part of the country is as far east as Cairo. The mainland is almost 1,090 miles 

long, but at its narrowest it is barely a mile across. It is surrounded on three sides by the 

sea, for which Norwegians have a deep, abiding respect. This is demonstrated, for example, 

by the positioning of an altar in a church in Ålesund, on the west coast: it is 

not in the east, but in the west – the church was actually constructed the other 

way around. This was for practical reasons: otherwise, storms could race in from 

the sea unimpeded, through the open door and right up to the altar. 

Norway’s extensive coastline with its rugged fjords stretches over 

a total of 50,000 miles. So its inhabitants are experienced in working with the 

sea. They also know how to exploit the potential of rocks – most of this long, 

thin country consists of granite. Norwegians are thus experts in oil and gas production, 

have developed promising new tidal power plants and built the world’s 

first “salt power” plant. They have improved fishing, and constructed recordbreaking 

tunnels and bridges. Yet Norway’s most innovative structures, and 

possibly most daring, are its North Sea oil platforms. At 172 metres, the largest is 

taller than the Eiffel Tower. None of them, however, receive the recognition 

they deserve – perhaps because few outsiders have ever seen them close up: 

hardly anyone but the people who work there is allowed on them. Norway 

also ranks highly in other areas. It has the best standard of living in the world 

and a high level of gender equality. Nearly all working-age Norwegian women 

have jobs, and many reach positions of influence and power. Forty percent of 

government ministers are women, and the female proportion on all executive 

boards is at least 40 percent. Yet at the same time Norway has one of the highest 

birth rates in Europe. This achievement is made possible by the fact that the 

state shares responsibility for bringing up children with the parents and because 

the men join in with the housework and childcare. 

Particularly famous for fjords are the over 300 miles of coast 

between Stavanger and Molde. The Geirangerfjord and the Nærøyfjord were 

listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2005. But there are many other lesstravelled 

areas where visitors can relax and unwind – and nowhere in Norway 

is more than 30 minutes’ drive from unspoiled nature. Magical landscapes like

There are 4.7 millions Norwegians 

– these few people enjoy the highest 

standard of living in the world and 

have been named the most peaceful 

Above: The centre of Ålesund on Norway’s 

west coast was completely rebuilt in 1904 in 

the German art nouveau style 

Below: A rainbow in the sky above the Flø 

Feriesenter near Ålesund 


21


Evoking associations with icebergs 

and snow-capped mountains, the Oslo Opera 

House is one of the capital’s main attractions 


Above: The Oslo Opera 

House, built in 2007 

Below: The Norwegian 

summer is short but 

intense – and is expe - 

rienced to the fullest

the Hardangervidda mountain plateau in central Norway and the Finnmarksvidda highland 

in the far north can be traversed by car, foot or – in winter – on skis. Anglers can fish for 

salmon in their choice of 450 lakes, and adventurers can take a mailboat from Bergen to 

Kirkenes in the extreme north. The magic of the short, intense summer on the Norwegian 

coast is something to be experienced. Although the southern part of Norway is at almost 

the same latitude as that of Greenland, water temperatures can reach 18°C and above 

thanks to the Gulf Stream, so it is actually the ideal place for a summer holiday – although 

word has not yet spread, and the Norwegians are usually left to enjoy it alone. 

Most of the major cities are on the west coast and face the sea. Each has its own unique 

character. Stavanger is the centre of Norway’s oil industry, yet has managed to maintain its 

cosy aspect. Norway’s second city, picturesque Bergen, was for centuries an important member 

of the Hanseatic League and remains a centre of the fish trade. The sea port Ålesund to 

the north is perhaps the most extraordinary city in the country. In 1904 its historic centre 

was destroyed in a fire, then completely rebuilt in the German art nouveau style. Trond heim’s 

Nidaros Cathedral is the only real cathedral in the land of stave churches. These wooden 

structures were built without the use of a single nail, just like the Viking ships, and represent 

an original Norwegian contribution to the world’s architectural history. 

The country’s financial and cultural centre is Oslo. There are few capital 

cities that are so urban and yet so close to nature. It covers 175 square miles, but threequarters 

of its surface area is taken up by woodland. Over 1,600 miles of cross-country 

ski runs are just 20 minutes away by train – some of them are illuminated until 11 p.m. 

In summer, the same journey time by ferry takes visitors to one of the many islands in 

the Oslofjord. It is hard to believe, relaxing in the sunshine on one of the many beaches, 

that the capital is just a few minutes away. The Opera House, opened in 2007, has become 

the new symbol of Oslo. Evoking as it does icebergs and snow-capped mountains, this 

building of shining white marble is uncompromisingly modern and typically Norwegian. 

It is probably also the only opera house in the world where anyone who wants to can 

climb up onto the roof – just like scaling a lofty peak. The most gorgeous feature inside 

is the Main Stage, whose dimensions were based on those of the world-famous 

Semperoper in Dresden. Close to the opera house is one of the city’s loveliest streets; 

Karl-Johangate leads to the Royal Palace and is lined with trees and smart buildings. The 

most elegant stores, however, are to be found in the parallel and side streets. Akersgate, 

for example, is on the way to becoming Oslo’s equivalent of Bond Street, at least according 

to watchmaker Tom Tidemann. He is the only watchmaker in Norway licensed to sell 

Glashütte Original products. These streets also house numerous elegant boutiques. 

However, the most exclusive outfit for the modern Norwegian woman does not come 

from a boutique but from the coasts and fjords, the plateaus and valleys. It is the bunad, 

Norway’s national dress. Many women own one of the elaborate embroidered costumes, 

and more and more men are now acquiring the male equivalent. Crown Prince Haakon 

has made appearances at several official occasions clad in the traditional garb. 

If you fancy viewing the over 400 regional variants of the bunad, you 

should plan a trip to Oslo for 17 May, Norwegian Constitution Day, which is a national 

holiday. Across the country, children form processions; here in Oslo, 111 school classes 

march past the palace, singing and carrying flags, as the Royal Family wave enthusiastically 

from their balcony. And everyone joins in with the national anthem, which begins with 

the simple but stirring words “Yes, we love this country.” Norwegians respect their traditions 

while embracing the advances of modern society – without the remotest feeling that 

this is a contradiction. Within a single generation, Norway has gone from being a poor 

to a wealthy country without betraying any of its principles. It’s no surprise Norwegians 

are so proud of their homeland. But there is one more thing they are particularly proud 

of: their achievements in the Winter Olympics. After Russia and Germany, this country of 

just 4.7 million inhabitants has the third-largest number of medals. ✺ 

An architectural gem in the middle of a wood: the Juvet 

Landscape Hotel on the Geirangerfjord 

Norway Information 

Trips: Norway in a nutshell. Round trip to Bergen and Oslo 

by train and ship via the Fjordnorwegen. Highly recommended! 

www.norwaynutshell.com · Boat trip on the Hurtigruten along 

the coast. One of most popular ways to get around Norway. 

www.hurtigruten.com 

Oslo 

Culture: Norwegian Opera, Kirsten Flagstads Plass 1. A guided 

tour is an absolute must! www.operaen.no · Vigeland Park, 

containing 212 sculptures, is the favourite park of locals and 

visitors alike. www.vigeland.museum.no · Munch Museum, 

Toyengata 53. www.munch.museum.no · Bygdøy Peninsula 

houses many different museums including the Norsk 

Folkemuseum open-air museum and the Kon-Tiki Museum – 

the place for children! 

Food: Theatercaféen, This art nouveau restaurant is a popular 

meeting place for businesspeople, intellectuals and artists. 

www.hotel-continental.com · Ekeberg Restaurant, Kongsveien 

15. The restaurant is housed in an opulently restored 

building in the Scandinavian functionalist style with magnificent 

views. www.ekebergrestauranten.com · Olympen Mat & Vinhus, 

Grønlandsleiret 15. A working man’s pub since 1892, now this 

is a pleasantly unpretentious restaurant in one of the city’s 

multicultural neighbourhoods. www.olympen.no 

Accommodation: Grand Hotel, Karl Johansgate 31. This traditional, 

central hotel has often put up Nobel Prize winners. 

www.grand.no · Hotel Bristol, Kristian IV's Gate 7. Central 

hotel with an intimate “library bar” where you can recharge for 

the next bout of sightseeing. www.bristol.no · Grims Grenka. 

This design hotel was named by Wallpaper magazine as one of 

the 50 best business hotels in the world. www.grimsgrenka.no 

Shopping: GlasMagasinet, Stortorvet 9, and Steen og Strøm, 

Nedre Slottsgate 8, best department stores in town. www.glasmagasinet.no, 

www.steenogstrom.no · Norway Designs, Stortingsgata 

28, right next to the National Theatre. Classic Norwegian 

design souvenirs. · Tidemann Urmakermester, Akersgata 18. 

Exclusive watch shop, authorized dealer of Glashütte Original. 

Elsewhere 

Ålesund: Hotel Brosundet, former warehouse with minimalistic 

fittings and furnishings by Snøhetta, the same firm that 

built the Oslo Opera House. www.brosundet.no 

On the Geirangerfjord: Juvet Landscape Hotel, built in a 

dramatically different style. Guests can participate in special 

programmes to get to know the Norwegian countryside. 

www.juvet.com 

Info on historic hotels in Norway: www.dehistoriske.com 


23

Time to Time News 

Sporty chums – 

there when you need them 

By Petra Bäuerle 

Hammering back down into the valley on a mountain bike, an adrenaline rally offroad, 

white-water rafting in the Rockies – there are some things in life that don’t require 

precision and accuracy alone; they demand toughness in both man and machine. 

Glashütte Original presents two watches that hold their own even under extreme 

sports conditions. The Sport Evolution Impact Chronograph and the Sport Evolution 

Impact Tourbillon are two tough customers whose shock absorption systems guarantee 

reliability and rate precision even under the most demanding conditions. This is made 

possible with the use of an advanced, flexible substance discovered in cooperation 

with the technology development department of the Fraunhofer 

Institute. Four elements crafted in elastomer, as the shock-absorb ing 

substance is called, are used to suspend the movement and dial 

as well as to form a connection with the case. 

Both models show their strength in 46 mm 

stainless steel cases. The chronograph outfitted with a 

tachymetric scale on the bezel with for measuring speed 

also has stop-seconds. The limited edition Sport Evolution 

Impact Tourbillon combines fascinating tourbillon technology 

rich in tradition with modern innovation and 

design. Automatic Caliber 94 and its gravity-defying flying 

tourbillon embody the highest standards of horological 

craftsmanship. 


You can’t shock these watches: the Sport Evolution 

Impact models absorb 60 percent of the force of an 

impact – and look great doing it 

Visit our multimedia presentation online at: 

www.glashuette-original.com/news

Top left: Sport Evolution Impact Chronograph with automatic manufacture Caliber 39-31 

Bottom and right: Sport Evolution Impact Tourbillon, limited edition to 100 pieces, automatic Caliber 94 


25

Time to Time News 

Finding something special 

Stylish classicism and perfect craftsmanship down 

to the smallest detail: the newest timekeepers from 

Glashütte Original satisfy the most ambitious demands 

Senator Meissen Tourbillon: Unites two Saxon inventions. Wafer-thin white 

Meissen porcelain gives the dial a unique look and creates an elegant frame 

for the flying tourbillon, a mechanism invented by Alfred Helwig at the 

German School of Watchmaking in Glashütte in 1920. The hours are 

marked by hand-painted Roman numerals, while automatic manufacture 

Caliber 94-11 can be admired through the antireflective 

sapphire crystal back of the rose gold case. 

Lady Serenade Chronograph: Demonstrates an elegant 

symbiosis of cool, shining stainless steel and glittering diamonds. 

The feminine curves of this luxurious chronograph hug the wrist, 

while its timer function lends the watch sporty competence. The 

sunburst decoration on the black galvanized dial conjures lustrous 

reflections and enhances the attractive radiance of this 38 mm 

timekeeper with sapphire crystal case back; the ideal companion 

for all occasions – leisure, business, or even an elegant evening. 

26 Momentum 1· 2009

Who will win the SAECULUM? 

The internationally distinguished cellist 

Jan Vogler (photo) chose the New 

World as the theme for his debut as 

artistic director of the Dresden Music 

Festival. The programme’s highlights 

include concerts by the Vienna Philharmonic 

Orchestra conducted by 

Valery Gergiev, the Royal Concertgebouw 

Orchestra under conductor 

Gustavo Dudamel and the Sächsische 

Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Reinhard Goebel. 

Audiences can also look forward to the award ceremony of 

the SAECULUM-Glashütte Original-Musikfestspielpreis, 

which will include a performance by the Royal Concertgebouw 

Orchestra.The Semper Opera House will again serve 

as the magnificent setting for the ceremony. The prestigious 

prize awarded by Glashütte Original will be presented to 

a public figure who has shown special commitment to fostering 

talented young musicians and has given fresh impetus 

to the music world. 

DRESDEN MUSIC FESTIVAL, 20 MAY TO 7 JUNE 2009 

TICKETS AT: WWW.MUSIKFESTSPIELE.COM 

TEL. +49 351 486 6666, BESUCHERSERVICE@MUSIKFESTSPIELE.COM 

Dance responsibly! 

International dance performances, concerts ranging from classical 

and jazz to pop, staged readings, discussions and workshops 

– from 14 April to 31 May 2009 distinguished artists and ensembles 

from all over the world will gather in Wolfsburg for the 

Movimentos Festival.The central theme of this year’s festival is 

“responsibility” – in other words, acting prudently for the benefit 

of as many people as possible and assessing the consequences 

of one’s actions in advance.Those invited to participate in the 

festival include the Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker from 

Brazil, the Australian Bangarra Dance Theatre, well-known actors 

such as Corinna Harfouch, Sophie Rois and Thomas Thieme, 

jazz greats Maceo Parker and Klaus Doldinger, and Italian author 

Donna Leon. In cooperation with TV channels ZDF and Arte, 

the City of Wolfsburg will be awarding the International Movimentos 

Dance Prize in five categories on 12 May in what will 

be one of the festival’s highlights. The award ceremony will be 

broadcast on Arte at 10:30 p.m. on 14 May. 

MOVIMENTOS FESTIVAL IN WOLFSBURG, 14 APRIL TO 31 MAY 2009. FOR INFORMATION 

AND TICKETS SEE THE FESTIVAL WEBSITE: WWW.MOVIMENTOS.DE 

News Time to Time 

New shop-in-shop design in Dubai 

Located in the Burj Dubai 

district and sprawling 

over one million square 

metres, the Dubai Mall is 

currently the biggest 

shopping centre on the 

planet. Glashütte Original 

has been represented here 

since December along with its trading partner the Rivoli 

Group. It is the luxury brand’s first store in the new shopin-shop 

design.The boutique’s interior is characterized by 

clean lines and an unusual mix of materials.The shop’s 125 

m² sales floor features exhibits from the history of watchmaking 

and technical innovations pioneered by Glashütte 

Original. The sumptuous yet friendly atmosphere invites 

shoppers to linger and learn more about the watchmaking 

tradition in Germany, and the attentive sales team from 

Rivoli Group are happy to answer any questions. 

DUBAI MALL, GROUND FLOOR/WATCHES AND JEWELLERY SECTION 

TEL. +971 4 339 8762, FAX +971 4 339 8305, GLASHUTTEDM@RIVOLI.AE 

BURJ DUBAI DISTRICT, DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES 

Momentum 1· 2009 27

Time Study Sapphires and rubies 


The sapphire crystal case back 

of the Senator Sixties

Crystal clear 

The synthetic corundum that is found both 

in a watch’s movement as ruby bearings 

and covering the dial as sapphire crystal 

are actually man-made, created using a 

clever process that imitates nature 

By Elizabeth Doerr 

T 

here is a natural mineral that is irreplaceable in a wristwatch: corundum. 

And although the average watch connoisseur may not be familiar with 

this term, varieties of it such as ruby and sapphire will certainly allow 

the reader to picture what it is we are talking about as these in their 

natural forms indeed count among the world’s most sought-after precious 

stones for decoration purposes. Corundum, however, also possesses 

properties that make it the perfect substance for functions of a wristwatch other than 

beauty, such as low-friction bearings. Bearings are necessary in a movement when two 

parts move against one another, in order to reduce friction. 

As early as the 18th century, English watchmakers were creating bearings of genuine ruby 

for balance pivots. Combined with lubrication in the form of oil, it excellently reduced 

friction. The technique of drilling the ruby, eventually called olive cutting, was invented 

by Swiss optician and astronomer Nicolas Fatio de Duillier in 1704. His technique was 

emulated by other skilled technicians, including Peter and Jacob Debaufre in England, 

who began producing drilled ruby “pellets” for the horological trade. In those days, the 

precious stones used for this purpose were second-rate castoffs from the jewelry trade. 

At the time, with no better quality available, the main drawback to the 

rubies was their cost due to the labour-intensive techniques involved in their manufacture, 

a fact that limited the use of jewels to very high-quality watches. Little by little, their 

manufacture, which included cutting, polishing and grinding in addition to drilling, became 

more industrialized, though inclusions, which naturally occur in any gemstone, also made 

them ever less acceptable as a bearing jewel as horological technology progressed. 

Fortunately, in 1902 Auguste Victor Louis Verneuil announced that he had discovered 

how to duplicate the chemical composition and crystal structure of a natural ruby, publishing 

a paper two years later explaining the process for producing synthetic corundum. 


Photos: Getty, Fotolia 

29


By 1907, several producers were manufacturing synthetic rubies 

at a combined rate of five million carats per year, some of which 

was earmarked for use in the movements of exclusive watches. 

Verneuil’s original process today remains essentially unchanged 

and it is used to produce corundum in all forms, including sapphire 

(blue corundum), ruby (red corundum), and leucosapphire (derived 

from the Greek word leykos, meaning white), which is colourless 

corundum, a substance today used to cover and protect watch 

dials in place of mineral crystal or Plexiglas. 

Verneuil’s process begins with a powder called aluminium oxide 

(AI2O3) that is flame-fused. The powder is introduced into a 

blowpipe invented by Verneuil that is heated to a temperature of 

2,050°C by mixing hydrogen and oxygen. A mechanically activated 

hammer at the top of the blowpipe taps the reservoir of alumina 

powder, causing droplets of it to fall regularly onto a prepared 

“seed” crystal. What nature needs about one hundred thousand 

years to create is thus done within about 15 hours: 

The corundum – or crystallized alumina – has formed 

on the rod and looks similar to a stalagmite, 

known in the industry as a boule. The boule 

is then re-fired at a temperature of 1,800°C to 

stabilize the crystal. 

At this point, the job of the 

crystal grower is done and the raw 

corundum boules are sold to watch crystal 

manufacturers, who buy them by the 

carat and according to the diameters 

they need. As today’s watches get bigger, 

the watch crystals have also needed to 

increase in size. Although the Ver neuil 

process is the only one that has ever been 

used for creating synthetic gems needed 

for watchmaking, other methods of obtaining 

synthetic corundum do exist. The Bagdasarov 


method, developed by the Russian military under the direction of 

Armenian scientist Khachatur Saakovich Bagdasarov, produces 

big blocks of corundum; and the Czochralski method, with crystals 

produced in a bath maintained at fusion temperature, is another 

method being explored by the industry. The reason why a new 

procedure is needed is that imperfections in the corundum material 

produced by the Verneuil process only become visible once the 

Synthetic sapphire is the second 

hardest substance on the Mohs scale and 

can only be scratched by diamond 

crystal has been completely worked, resulting in 10 to 15 percent 

of all finished pieces being defective. This is, of course, a large 

cost factor. 

Today, about 400 to 500 tons of corundum are produced annually 

using the Verneuil process, though in addition to the jewelry and 

watchmaking industries it is also used for optics and precision 

mechanics. 

To manufacture sapphire crystals, the boule is 

first cut into disks of the appropriate size. This is done 

by a sawing machine sporting diamond blades, 

diamond being the only thing harder than 

corundum, a substance located at 9 on the 

Mohs scale, while diamond has a hardness 

of 10. The boules are covered by a waxy 

brown resin to keep them in place during 

the cutting, which takes five to eight 

hours. The pieces, now opaque in colour, 

are subsequently cleaned to remove any 

residual resin. Then the blanks, as the 

corundum pieces are called after cutting, 

are ground to the eventual shape they 

are to take (round, square, rectangular) 

with a tolerance of 2/100 of a milli metre. 

Natural rubies are one of the most soughtafter 

and expensive forms of corundum

Some of the PanoInverse XL’s ruby bearing 

jewels are visible on the front thanks to the 

fact that its base plate has become the dial 


31


During these processes, about half of the corundum material is 

lost as dust. 

Then the blanks go through a series of operations performed by 

qualified personnel: evening the thickness, forming the exteriors, 

beveling, faceting, spherical or cylindrical recessing and doming, 

polishing, cleaning, and quality control. It is only after all of these 

just about 20 steps have been completed that an imperfection in 

a crystal can be seen and declared usable or not. The blanks are 

cleaned between each step to ensure that particles of sapphire 

residue from the diamond cutting wheels, diamond powder and 

cementing resins are completely removed. Any of this left on the 

blank will affect the quality of each machining operation. The most 

important cleaning step takes place after the final operation. This 

allows for a proper visual control of the transparency of the piece 

and ensures that only perfect crystals are delivered to the customer. 


Senator Sixties Technical data 

Glashütte Original’s designers have captured 

the joie de vivre of the 1960s in the 

Senator Sixties, greatly characterized by 

the domed dial and crystal typical of the 

period – though then it would have been 

Hesalite rather than sapphire, the latter a 

material far more resistant to scratching – 

which allow the extra-flat case premium expression 

that perfectly matches the arced, 

luminescent, skeletonized hands gliding 

harmoniously across the satin-finished dial 

with diamond-cut hour markers and extra - 

vagant numerals. The shaped sapphire crystal 

case back allows a direct view into automatic 

manufacture Caliber 39-52 with its 

characteristic elements of Glashütte watchmaking 

such as three-quarter plate and 

swan-neck fine adjustment. This timepiece 

is available with a silver-coloured or black 

dial in a rose gold or stainless steel case. 

www.glashuette-original.com 

The beauty of blue 

sapphire lies in the 

rich colour of this 

corundum variety 

Anti-reflective coating is an option for sapphire 

crystals. This diffuses every reflection so that the naked eye sees 

almost no reflection. The coating is actually a layer of oxide between 

three and five microns thick added to the crystal by an evaporation 

system in a sterilized laboratory at a temperature of about 280°C. 

The crystals can be made anti-reflective either on the underside or 

on both sides, and the difference is astounding when you compare 

the two side by side. If the watch sports a blue or black dial, an 

anti-reflective coating on both sides can almost make the wearer 

believe that there is no crystal at all. Likewise, if anti-reflective treatment 

is missing, a blue or black dial may prove hard to read. One 

drawback of anti-reflective treatment is that it is softer than the 

sapphire crystal itself, meaning that although it may be close to 

impossible to scratch the crystal – which only a diamond can do 

– the anti-reflective coating can easily be scratched. Crystals treated 

on one side are 92% anti-reflective, while crystals treated on both 

sides are 96% anti-reflective. 

Synthetic rubies, today’s standard as bearing jewels, 

are, by the way, manufactured the same way. The red boules are 

literally sliced using a machine outfitted with a copper and diamond 

cutting tool. The slices are halved, squared, and finally cut into 

round shapes measuring between 0.3 and 0.5 millimetres in thickness 

and 1.15 to 2.55 millimetres in diameter. 

Using synthetic sapphire crystal as a watch dial covering became 

popular in the late 1960s as it could boast three distinct advantages 

over the acrylic and mineral crystals that had mainly been used 

until then. Synthetic sapphire is hard – the second hardest substance 

available – and therefore can only be scratched, or worked, 

by a diamond. Synthetic sapphire is heavy, giving a watch a more 

luxurious feel. And synthetic sapphire is still a precious stone, albeit 

man-made, making the watch more valuable as a whole – much like 

the perception that ruby bearings in a movement exude. ✺

�� 

�� 

Glashütte Original. 

Founder of the German Watch Museum Glashütte. 

Hand-engraving of the butterfly bridge for the Caliber 66 

The PanoInverse XL. 

Delicate filigree details, hand-engraved with 

artistic precision give this unique timepiece 

its unmistakable character. Its Caliber 66 

manual winding movement boasts the finest 

mechanics, hand-crafted in Glashütte Original’s 

time honored watchmaking tradition. Find out 

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telephone +49 35053 46 0.

Time Flow Wallpaper 

Off the wall 

After years of minimalistic purism and the dominance 

of painted woodchip, wallpaper is making a magnificent 

comeback. Artists and designers are rediscovering the 

potential of wall surfaces, and their creative, exclusive 

designs are inspiring a new generation of homeowners 

By Nicole Knaupp 


Ever since 1999 Deborah Bowness has been designing wallpaper 

that is as entertaining as it is unconventional – an example of her work 

is featured in the picture to the left. She hand prints the paper with pictures 

of everyday objects such as standing lamps and then paints over parts of 

the black-and-white images with watercolour. The objects on Deborah’s wallpapers 

– from chairs to hooks in the wall to crammed bookcases – give 

the illusion of being three-dimensional. The „Observer“ newspaper has gushed 

about her “new worlds of wallpaper design” and numerous design museums 

have displayed the creative Brit’s work. Her innovative paper can be used 

throughout the entire room but often just a single strip is enough to achieve 

a remarkable effect. www.deborahbowness.com 

Much more than just decoration. A room papered in the wall 

coverings produced by French textiles company Elitis is more like an art 

installation. Anyone who adorns their home with these unusual materials 

is the kind of person who dares to be different and likes to exhibit their 

individuality and sharp sense of style. The company’s latest hits are its “Big 

Croco” wallpapers – fake crocodile skin available in many different colours 

– and its “Native” fake-fur range, pictured here. The textured vinyl wallpaper 

is not only a treat for the eyes, but for the fingertips too .The sensual fur 

wall covering manages to elegantly combine classic sophistication with a 

funkier, more modern feel. The same rule of thumb applies to these wall - 

papers, though: less is more; sparing use of the paper will achieve a more 

glamorous effect. www.elitis.fr 


35



London company Fromental produces wallpaper 

exclusively for the luxury segment. The hand-painted or opulently 

embroidered silk wall coverings of founding designers Lizzie 

Deshayes and Tim Butcher incorporate motifs from traditional 

Chinoiserie such as lotus flowers and ornamental carp (see left) 

or feature simple, elegant striped patterns. The designs are all conceived 

in England but produced exclusively in China, where the 

silk-weaving tradition reaches back centuries. A single strip of wallpaper, 

measuring 91 x 200 cm, takes up to 600 hours to make. 

Fromental was founded in 2005 and achieved its breakthrough the 

following year when the designer duo received a large commission 

from casino mogul Steve Wynn. The wealthy businessman ordered 

1,400 metres of paper for his Wynn Las Vegas and over 900 metres 

for a hotel complex in Macao. www.fromental.co.uk 

Lisa Bengtsson’s wallpapers tell stories. The 27-year-old 

is part of Sweden’s young designer elite. As soon as she had graduated 

from college, the young graphic artist founded her own 

company designing tableware, fabrics and wallpapers. Her very 

first wallpaper design, “Family”, proved to be a big hit. The range 

features picture frames of various sizes which buyers can adorn with 

photographs or decoration, or just leave blank. For Lisa, this is an 

expression of the fact that all of us lead very different, individual 

lives. Lisa’s second design, “Svärmor” – wallpaper covered with 

black-and-white prints of shoes – sends us on a journey through 

time: “Each type of shoe represents a different period of 

life.” The wallpaper pictured here, on the other hand, 

printed with intertwined flowers, birds and photos of 

Edith Piaf, is open to interpretation. “Edith” is particularly 

impressive when used on the ceiling, enabling day - 

dreamers to look up and behold the images from the 

comfort of the bed or sofa. www.lisabengtsson.se



Ulf Moritz creates haute couture for walls. The extravagant 

German textile designer has delighted people across the globe with his extraordinary 

patterns for the past 47 years. Every year the textile industry 

awaits his latest collection with the greatest anticipation. Since 2000 Ulf has 

also been designing wallpaper for the company marburg wallcoverings. 

Like his fabrics, the creative genius’s wallpapers have been attracting great 

popularity thanks to his experiments with various materials; he conjures 

up matt-gloss sheens, shimmering effects and designs that seem almost to 

come to life. The wallpapers in his “Pearl” collection are festooned with small 

glass beads. He takes his inspiration from Gothic, Baroque and Art Nouveau 

motifs. The master has said that he wants his wallpaper creations to “touch 

people, to turn them on, to be sexy and appealing.” www.marburg.com

Wallpaper company Rasch is breaking with its more 

traditional approach by bringing Iris Maschek on board. The celebrated fabric and wallpaper 

designer created 14 digitally printed patterns for Rasch, which is better known for producing 

more conventional wall coverings. The dark, intricate patterns look like large paintings 

spreading across the walls. The basic stylistic element employed by Iris is that of a blend of visual 

effects that recall positive and negative images on film. Spectators feel as if they are looking 

through a semi-transparent, elaborately woven curtain. Iris often draws her inspiration from 

the forms and structures found in plant life. She translates the beauty of nature into abstract, 

figurative shapes that leave room for interpretation. The native of Cologne, who also DJs in 

some of the city’s top night spots, has thus developed her own vocabulary of form that goes 

beyond fads and trends. And her work has not only caused a sensation among textile companies, 

even her rivals admire her work. At the last Heimtextil trade fair, star designer Ulf Moritz called 

her “the find of the year”. www.rasch.de 


39

Photos: Getty (2) 


Tendence Time and dream 

Dreamtime 

How do we experience time while we are sleeping? Does it move 

more quickly or more slowly – does it even exist at all? 

And how often do we spend our nights travelling back to the past 

or forward to the future? We lift the veil on sleep

FB y Maike Zürcher 

ive hours in just ten seconds, a whole day in twelve 

minutes, a century in the blink of an eye... Some times 

when we dream we feel that we have lived through 

a whole lifetime, but when we wake up a glance at 

the clock reveals that just a few minutes have passed. 

French physician Alfred Maury, who was researching dreams 

before Sigmund Freud became famous, had personal experience 

of this sensation: while asleep in 1861 he dreamt himself into the 

turmoil of the French Revolution. He was to be executed, but just 

as the blade of the guillotine was plunging towards his exposed 

neck, he awoke to discover that a piece of his bed had fallen onto 

the back of his head. Maury concluded that at the moment of 

impact his brain must have formulated an appropriate story to 

explain the physical sensation, and thus created the French Revo - 

lution dream as a kind of flashback. So it would seem that we do 

not experience time in the same way in our sleeping and our 

waking lives – as Maury’s days of revolution must actually have 

taken place in just seconds. Since then, however, other scientists 

researching the phenomenon of dreaming have dismissed Maury’s 

theory as a subjective impression, submitting evidence that they 

say proves the contrary. 

Almost a century later, in 1951, researchers at the 

University of Chicago discovered REM sleep. During REM phases, 

when the sleeper’s eyes move rapidly, the brain is much more 

active than during deep sleep. This is the time when dreams occur. 

Although the brain is actually about as active as it is when the 

person is awake, the body remains still, the muscles do not move 

– thankfully, as this means we can move around in our dreams 

without bashing into all the bedroom furniture back in the real 

world. Scientists now distinguish between five different phases of 

sleep, which are repeated several times throughout the night. 

Shortly after the groundbreaking discovery of REM, two researchers 

at the University of Chicago, William Dement and Nathaniel 

Kleitman, attempted to prove that time as we dream it and time 

as we experience it when awake do correspond after all. Test subjects 

in their sleep laboratory were asked, upon being awakened 

from REM sleep, how long they thought they had been dreaming. 

Their answers were pretty much correct – if they had been 

REMing for 15 minutes, they usually felt their dream had lasted 

about that long. 

Yet research into dreams represents a particular 

challenge for scientists. What the data available to dream researchers, 

or oneirologists, lacks is immediacy. Michael Wiegand, psychiatry 

professor in Munich, explains: “When we remember a dream, the 

simple act of recalling it becomes a reconstruction. Our brain goes 

through the story of our dream in a very different way when it is 

awake – the conditions are utterly different to the moment at which 

we were actually having the dream. When we dream, our brains 

are in a third state between deep sleep and waking.” Women tend 

to remember their dreams better than men do – but this is probably 

for sociological reasons, as women are encouraged to pay more 

attention to their feelings and impressions. 

So oneriologists have to depend on what their test subjects tell 

them about their dreams once they have woken up – when they 

are on an entirely different plain of consciousness. And so far no 

one has come up with a nifty little device to record our dreams, 

so this group of scientists have nothing to work with but subjective 

impressions that cannot be measured. And anyone who has tried 

“Life is made up of two 

parts: the past – a dream; 

the future – a wish” Arab proverb 


41


Tendence Time and dream 

to relate their dreams to family and friends is very familiar with 

that frustrating feeling of not being able to properly describe them 

using mere words. Dreams are very hard to pin down. Petra 

Gehring, a professor of theoretical philosophy, says, “Dreams are 

fascinating. We want to dissect them and analyse them, yet they 

seem to slip from our grasp; they are remote from science, unreal, 

misty and obscure.” 

The stuff of which dreams are made usually comes 

from the specific memory and experiences of the sleeper. Dr. Michael 

Schredl, head of the sleep laboratory at Mannheim University’s 

Central Institute of Mental Health: “Many different things leave 

impressions on our subconscious minds; everything we see and 

experience, from our own upbringing to the mass media, is stored 

in our memories, which our dreams then dip into. That means that 

our dreams are influenced to a large degree by our culture.” 

Nocturnal journeys into history such as that experienced by Alfred 

Maury are rare – as are dreams that take us to past events in our 

own lives. Contrary to popular belief, elderly people do not dream 

about their childhood any more frequently than young people do. 

What is quite common, however, is for us to dream of certain elements 

from our past, such as our old school, the house where we 

lived as a child, or friends and acquaintances from long ago. 

“But,” Schredl tells us, “the subjective feeling of being younger in 

our dreams than we are in real life is not very common. Dreams 

usually take place in the present.” He goes on to explain that in 

our dreams we are usually pretty much the same person as we 

are in our waking lives. “Dreams that are set in the future are rare, 

too. Dreams tend to pick up on those topics that are of current 

relevance to our lives – though not always in the form of obvious 

images; dreams reflect the way we feel about things we have 

experienced that day.” And these dreams therefore often really do 

just address mundane everyday occurrences – refuting Nietzsche’s 

claim that “Either one does not dream at all, or one dreams in an 

interesting manner.” 

But while the average dreamer primarily tackles the same issues 

in her sleep that have been occupying her throughout the day, 

there are people who seem to spend most of the night dreaming 

and who report that throughout their dreams different dream ele- 

ments and temporal levels interweave in fascinating ways; according 

to their recollections, their dreams have their own past, present 

and future. “These people even dream of things that they have 

seen in earlier dreams, things they have never set eyes on in their 

waking lives,” Schredl reports. 

During our dreams we do not find anything particularly 

peculiar about leaps in time or illogical events. Our current 

partner morphs to become a previous lover, our own house is 

suddenly placed in an unfamiliar setting, a friend who died many 

years ago is engaging us in a compelling conversation – all perfectly 

normal. According to neurologist Michel Jouvet, the fact that 

we regard such paradoxes as normal has a scientific foundation. 

He states that certain neurons in our brain need to switch off 

every once in a while to regenerate, although others do not. Thus, 

while we sleep, those neurons that allow us to think critically are 

also out for the count. 

Much of the field of sleep research remains a mystery, but there is 

one thing that scientists can agree on: not only are dreams meaningful, 

they are also essential for maintaining health. Experiments 

during which the test subjects were not allowed to enter REM 

sleep revealed that without dreams we become irritable, de pressed 

and at severe risk of mental and physical illness. So, dreaming is 

a good thing. 

The actual function of dreaming is a topic of speculation for scientists, 

religious scholars and philosophers. Whatever their purpose, 

dreams can enrich the life of anyone who recalls them, ponders 

their meaning and discusses them with friends or writes them 

down. They expand our horizons, introduce us to unexplored 

levels of consciousness and encourage us to look at things differ - 

ently. The alert dreamer can profit from addressing the topics that 

come up in his or her dreams – and may thus be better prepared 

for the future. ✺

“Dreams can shape feelings, scenarios and 

images in such a vivid and beautiful way that 

the artist cannot hope to achieve when awake” 

Emil Nolde (German artist, 1867–1956) 


43

Photo: Getty 

Time to Style Perfumers 


Just follow your nose 

Masters of the olfactory arts, perfumers distil dreams 

into reality. The best of them are capable of creating the one 

thing their customers desire most: individuality 

By Petra Bäuerle 

T 

he moment our nose picks up a scent it sends a 

message directly to our brain. We might find the 

smell dull, discordant or oppressive or we may 

appreciate its interesting, appealing or even 

seductive qualities. Whatever associations we 

have, the nose knows what it likes from the 

very first whiff. None of our other senses has such a direct 

influence on our subconscious as smell, and that is why the scents 

we choose are an expression of who we are. Once we have truly 

appreciated that fact, we no longer want to buy our perfumes 

“prêt-à-porter”; instead we abandon the mainstream on the quest 

for fragrances that fit us like a tailored suit. 

Lyn Harris is one such exclusive scent designer. She 

tells how she aims to create fragrances that purely and simply 

express her clients’ individuality, fragrances that are not just any 

old perfume: “I set out on a search for aroma blends that go much 

deeper.” Lyn Harris experimented with her first fragrances in her 

parents’ garden in Scotland before going on to complete her training 

in Paris and hone her technique in Grasse, the world’s perfume 

capital. She and her accomplished nose then returned to the UK, 

where she opened a laboratory in London and founded her own 

label, Miller Harris, in 2000. (Miller was her father’s middle name.) 

Today Lyn’s original, fresh and subtle scents are produced in her 

laboratories in London and Grasse – or clients visit Lyn to get a 

personal creation tailored to their own smell. Lyn is regarded as a 

pioneer in the field of “bespoke perfumes”, as they are known. 

The process starts with a getting-to-know-you day, when the client 

spends a whole day with Lyn in the laboratory, going through her 

“scented library”. Lyn and her client then conduct an intensive 

Lyn Harris, who works in both London and Grasse, is regarded as a 

pioneer of bespoke perfumes 

series of tests until, six months later, Lyn presents the client with 

his or her personal scent, which is registered in Grasse. 

Yogesh Kumar gets even closer to his clients. He sniffs 

out their strengths and weaknesses, dreams and fears, loves and 

lies – by snuffling around their neck and hairline. Once he has 

gleaned the most intimate details about these men and women, he 

puts together a personality profile around which he then composes 

the individual scents. The method of this Indian perfumer who

“A real perfume speaks to you and excites 

your imagination. The rustling of fabric, 

the barely perceptible aura of a 

(Serge Lutens) 

blossom, the dust of Cairo, intermingled with gold.” 


45

Time to Style Perfumers 


Top left: The poet among the perfumers – Serge Lutens dreams up worlds of 

fragrance. His products are polarizing: you either love them or you don’t! 

Top right: A Parisienne has rewritten the map in New York. Laurice Rahmé’s 

label Bond No.9 produces perfumes like Central Park and Wall Street. Bottom 

left: Indian perfumer Yogesh Kumar works in Vienna, composing symphonies 

of scent for individualists on the basis of their own personal smell. 

Bottom right: A perfumer who bursts the bounds of convention: Alessandro 

Gualtieri, otherwise known as Nasomatto, is revolutionizing the world of 

scent from his base in Amsterdam

claims to be able to “hear” with his nose may sound a little mad, but 

it is a tried and very trusted approach, confirmed by his numerous 

contracts with companies and hotels. For his business clients he 

designs and produces “corporate scents”, tailor-made scent solutions 

for rooms, which he brands as “messages in a bottle”. “Every human 

being and every company has its own smell,” explains Yogesh 

Kumar, who started experimenting with aromatic essences at the 

dining table back in his home in New Delhi when he was just 13. 

As an adult, the perfume guru came to Vienna, where he began 

composing individual fragrances for individual people in his shop 

on stylish shopping street Kirchengasse. And if you feel uncomfortable 

exposing your neck to the master’s nose, you can send a 

scarf impregnated with your scent so that the quirky consultant 

can use it as the basis for his initial scent report. 

“It’s true, I’m tough,” Laurice Rahmé once told The 

New York Times. The native of Paris made waves in the Big Apple 

when she founded her own perfume label and personally led it to 

success. The city’s beautiful people and its many fans come to her 

for authentic New York scents like Park Avenue, which exudes the 

luxurious flair of the famous street of designer boutiques, and Wall 

Street, with its herbal notes and a hint of the salty air of the Atlantic. 

The flamboyant Frenchwoman now markets over 25 different perfumes 

under the name Bond No. 9, the address of her main store. 

Those who cannot decide which fragrance is right for them (and who 

are regarded as important customers) are driven in the Bond-mobile 

to the locations in the city that inspired the individual creations. And 

it is not only Madame Rahmé’s marketing strategies that are extravagant, 

the fragrances themselves are too: they are all eaux de parfum 

with a very high concentration of aromatic compounds – from 

18 to 20 percent. In this respect the New Yorker of many years 

remains true to her roots in traditional French perfume-making. 

And this is an art that Serge Lutens has mastered 

better than almost anyone else. The gentle, almost melancholic 

perfumer divides his time between the hustle and bustle of Paris 

and his much more sedate residence near Marrakech. Trends and 

fashions are irrelevant to him; he lives his life according to his 

own rules, not by anybody else’s: “You have to grab freedom with 

your own hands; a freedom that has been granted to you by 

someone else is no freedom at all.” In particular, Serge applies this 

principle to the composition of his unique fragrances. They are rich, 

authentic and mysterious and seem to draw their inspiration from 

special memories and deep emotions. Their names fit them perf ectly. 

There is Arabie, sensual and full of sunshine; Fleurs de Citron nier 

with a clear, cool transparency and oriental notes; and the new 

fragrance Serge Noir, inspired by the phoenix, the mythical bird 

“Above all, perfumes must do one thing: 

awaken pleasant memories and positive 

associations. The people who come 

to me want to be more than one among thousands.” 

(Yogesh Kumar) 

that is resurrected from its own ashes and which Serge identifies 

with. The native of Lille is self-taught and started his career as a 

young man in Paris developing Christian Dior’s first cosmetics 

lines. He shaped the face of the French edition of Vogue as its Art 

Director and then spent 15 years as Creative Director with Japanese 

cosmetics producer Shiseido. In 2000 he started his own label, 

Parfums Serge Lutens, which allowed him to concentrate on his 

overriding passion: creating perfumes. And he has found an 

appropriate platform for his compositions: Les Salons du Palais 

Royal in the centre of Paris, opened in 1992, functions as a stage 

for the master perfumer’s olfactory artworks. Lutens can be regarded 

as a champion of scent, rejecting the idea of a world “where a sense 

of smell no longer seems to be necessary.” 

Nor does Nasomatto settle for anything resembling a 

traditional approach. The subversive ingenuity of “Crazy Nose”, Italian 

perfumer Alessandro Gualtieri, has led to innovative fragrances 

that burst the bounds of convention. Working from his adopted 

city, Amsterdam, he has devised a collection of perfumes whose 

names strongly hint at their odours, like Absinth, Silver Musk and 

Hindu Grass. Nasomatto, who has concocted imaginative compositions 

for designers like Versace and Helmut Lang, wants to start 

an olfactory revolution to inspire new perceptions of smell and how 

it can trigger associations and emotions. He uses only the best ingredients 

to conjure up intriguing aromas that are deeply sensuous, 

and a little bit off the wall. ✺ 

Perfumers Websites 

www.millerharris.com 

www.dasparfum.com (for Yogesh Kumar) 

www.bondno9.com 

www.nasomatto.com 

www.sergelutens.com 


47

Sources: brand eins, extrawissen.de, faz.net, interessante-fakten.de, René Ammann 

Moments in Time Facts & figures 


Did you know that a mouse’s heart beats at a rate of around 700 bpm? 

The US supercomputer Roadrunner is the fastest computer in the world. It can perform more than 

1,000 trillion calculations a second. It would take around 120,000 standard laptops 

to match its computing power. 

The average citizen of Mexico City spends 150 minutes a day commuting to and from work. 

Camels can store so much fat in their humps that they can go without food for up to 30 days. 

Their digestive tracts can hold up to 150 litres of water and they can drink ten litres of water in just one minute. 

In the year 1800 only two percent of the world’s population lived in towns and cities. 

By 2007 the figure had risen to 51 percent. 

A blink of the human eye lasts 

around 100 milliseconds. 

It is estimated that 90 percent of the 

approximately 6,000 languages spoken around the world today 

will be extinct 100 years from now. 

During the 2002 census in Australia, 70,000 people entered “Jedi” as their religion. 

It would take a vehicle travelling at 160 km/h 29 million years to reach the star closest to Earth. 

Rebuilding the Great Pyramid of Giza using today’s modern technology would still take at least eight years. 

However, the job would only require 68 workers, whereas the original relied on the labour of 6,700. 

By curbing aircraft speeds and lengthening flight times by just a few minutes, US airline Southwest hopes to be able 

to save $42 million this year.

Well-disguised Sequence 

One way to hunt 

In the Indus River, what looks like a strange headdress is really a clever trick. 

These hunters place dead herons on top of their heads to attract and catch living herons. 


Photo: Getty 

49

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Masthead 

50 26 Momentum 3· 3· 2008 2006 

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