Urwerk UR-103T Watch: The Tarantula Inspires Avant Garde Haute Horlogerie

Urwerk, an ultra-luxury watchmaking house known for a nearly unparalleled devotion to the avant-garde, has again displayed its penchant for exceptional mechanical creativity.  The new Urwerk UR-103T watch redefines the brand's unique orbital cross and satellite time display, using as its inspiration one of nature's most memorable predators: the tarantula.  

In the Urwerk UR-103T, the orbital cross is crafted from ARCAP, an alloy of copper and nickel noted for its stability.  Suggestive of the legs of the tarantula grasping its prey, the cross conceals the numbers on the four hour satellites until the time that each satellite traverses the minutes scale at the lower part of the dial.  Unique to the UR-103T, each of the four satellites completes 120-degree turns in the space of time between its exit from the minute scale and the time it returns again rotated to show a new hour.  Manufactured from aluminum, the satellites are affixed to a beryllium-bronze Geneva cross.  The distinctive spider-inspired ARCAP 40 orbital cross is mounted to a plate made of the same corrosion resistant material.

The distinctive black case of the Urwerk UR-103T watch is crafted from stainless steel and features an Aluminum/Titanium Nitride treatment.  Balance frequency of the manually wound Caliber 3.03 is 43 hours, and balance frequency is 21,600 vibrations per hour.

A daunting feat of micro-mechanical engineering, the precisely moving orbital cross and its satellites--which weigh over 300 times that of conventional hands--exact severe demands in every stage of design and manufacture, to realize the standards of horological excellence demanded by Urwerk.  The final result is a work of contemporary watchmaking art that challenges established concepts of how time is read, and perhaps even presents some philosophical contemplation on the present, the past, and the future.