Translated by Bethszabee Garner
‘Woe to those who have nothing left to desire.’ Rousseau. In Geneva, everything begins with a gesture. Luxury is silent, like that of the craftsman who polishes a case, adjusts a screw, blows away invisible dust. A gesture repeated for more than four centuries, which has shaped the city as much as its golden stones. It was here, in 1601, that the world's first watchmakers' guild was founded. Calvin, who had banned goldsmithing as too ostentatious, unwittingly opened up another field: the measurement of time. Since then, Geneva has been beating to the rhythm of this methodical slowness.
Eternity in three hands
An exhibition of timepieces shortlisted for the GPHG 2025 from 29 October to 16 November 2025, in the historic rooms of the Geneva Museum of Art and History
Since 29 October, as every year, the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève has been paying tribute to this silent genius at the Museum of Art and History. For one week, the city is transformed to welcome its finest houses, including Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet and Rolex, all of which exhibit their creations in the hope of winning the coveted César award. Above all, it is a celebration of craftsmanship and the transmission of that obsession with detail that makes Geneva the capital of precision timekeeping.
You only have to step inside a workshop or museum to feel the alchemy of the craft. At the Patek Philippe Museum, housed in a former mansion, time seems to have stood still so that it can be better contemplated. Behind the display cases are 18th-century pocket watches, miniature automata and works of art in enamel. The famous Marie Antoinette watch, designed over a period of forty years and completed long after her death, symbolises Swiss patience.
This philosophy is reflected today in the Geneva Watchmaking Guide, a self-guided tour that invites visitors to discover the city's iconic watchmaking addresses, including its historic houses and mechanisms. A collaboration between the FHH (Fédération de Haute Horlogerie) and the Geneva Tourist Office, it showcases the spirit of a city that appeals to those who prefer the hand to the machine.
The guardians of time
Behind these big names are the artisans. Those who, in Geneva, literally give shape to time. In the discreet workshops of Plan-les-Ouates, Meyrin and Les Acacias, nearly 7,000 watchmakers, engravers, polishers and engineers perpetuate a craft that has been handed down for more than four centuries. Their world is one of millimetres, sometimes even microns. A balance wheel must not deviate by more than 0.0001 grams, and a spring can take more than ten hours to polish by hand. Each highly complicated watch requires an average of between 200 and 500 components, all assembled by hand.
And to go further... Watches and words
Few cities have been able to give time such depth as Geneva. It was here that Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in 1712, the child of a watchmaker and a mother who died too soon. In Les Confessions, he evokes a childhood spent in workshops and solitude. ‘Time passes, and everything changes,’ he wrote, a phrase that still seems to echo in the cobbled streets of the old town.
Three centuries later, Joël Dicker, another son of Geneva, takes up this theme of time lost and found in his own way. His novels, which have sold millions of copies, are also a declaration of love for his hometown. To date, words about the Swiss capital have taken on the same meaning: to flourish in diversity (and chocolate)! The Geneva Watchmaking Guide is available at the city's tourist office. For the curious, those hunting for secret corners or aspiring master watchmakers... this Swiss bible awaits you, not at the summit of Mont Blanc, but just a stone's throw away.
The editorial team's time log:
Where to stay? La Réserve Genève
Where to eat? At Breitling Kitchen
Where to learn? At the Franck Muller Manufacture
Where to create? At Initium, a workshop open to the public where you can design your own watch.
