The Maison
Portrait
Carl F. Bucherer is one of the few remaining Swiss watch manufacturers still in the hands of its founding family. The brand is deeply rooted in the cosmopolitan spirit of Lucerne, where it originated 130 years ago. It is here in this cosmopolitan city that its elegant, technically innovative timepieces see daylight. Horological tradition is preserved in products of consistently intelligent design that pave the way for the mechanisms of the future, such as the peripheral rotor, introduced in 2008. These are the guiding principles of Carl F. Bucherer.
History
Like the century into which he was born, an era of invention and new ideas, Carl Friedrich Bucherer broke with tradition. In 1888, the year the steepest cog railway in the world took its first passengers up the sharp slopes of Mount Pilatus overlooking Lucerne, the Swiss entrepreneur opened a shop selling watches and jewellery to the town's many tourists, laying the foundations for a business that would grow once/soon into a world-renowned brand. From decorative timepieces to precision mechanisms, success was on the cards. howing characteristic insight, Carl Friedrich Bucherer was one of the first to imagine a watch worn on the wrist. His successors would grow his legacy. In 1960, the company joined a consortium of leading Swiss watchmakers whose purpose was to develop the first quartz movement: Beta 21. The brand was one of the top names for chronometers throughout the 1970s and managed to also set a new benchmark in dive watches: the Archimedes Super Compressor (1971) was built to withstand pressure to a depth of 200 metres. Another important milestone followed in 2008 when the company presented the first serial-produced calibre to be automatically wound by an oscillating weight on its periphery. In 2016, with the opening of new facilities in Lengnau, in the canton of Berne, Carl F. Bucherer achieved the enviable status of Manufacture by increasing and optimising production in the process.
