Audemars Piguet was founded in the Zhu Valley in the Jura mountain range on the very border of France and Switzerland; here it is still located. A museum designed by BIG was built at the very building where Audemard and Piguet founded their “hour start-up” in 1875, as Bjarke Ingels calls it.
The historical and natural surroundings made the building fit into the landscape and camouflaged with a green roof. At the same time, its flat roof contradicted local norms, and the architects had to convince the authorities that it was she who was better suited here, and not the prescribed pitched tiled roof.
The project itself was selected based on the results of the 2013–2014 competition: the customer liked the idea of the museum in the form of a clock spring most of all. As a result, the route of the survey is twisted in a spiral, capturing the old museum building nearby.
The coil spring encompasses not only the best Audemars Piguet watches in the history of the company, but also the exemplary workshops where these “measuring instruments” are made today. Visitors will be able to sit down at the workbench themselves and assess the precision and complexity of the watchmaker's work under a microscope.
The steel roof with a total weight of 470 tons rests on a load-bearing glass façade. The brass lattice "border" protects it from overheating. The green roof here is planted with native plants and also helps control the temperature inside the museum. The exposition was designed by the Stuttgart Atelier Brückner.
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zooming 1/3 Audemars Piguet Workshop Museum Photo © Iwan Baan
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zooming 2/3 Audemars Piguet Workshop Museum Photo © Iwan Baan
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zooming 3/3 Audemars Piguet Workshop Museum Photo © Iwan Baan
