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Lang & Heyne: luxury watches originating from Saxony
Peter Braun
The Dresden watch brand was founded in 2001 by two "soul mates" as they’re called today. At the time Mirko Heyne worked in a big manufacture in Glashütte. He met Marco Lang through his intellectual guide, his father Ralf. The youngest child in a line of five generations of watch manufacturers, Marco Lang could observe his father throughout his childhood. As it happens Rolf Lang was manager of the restoration workshop of the Dresden mathematics and physics institute, which has one of the biggest collections of precision mechanical watches and instruments, up until 1990.
Together Lang and Heyne chose to exploit their watch making talent and join the watch making companies that already existed in Glashütte. Their designs had to be more personal, more small-scale and more traditional.
The following year Lang & Heyne presented its first two wristwatch models on the occasion of the Baselworld 2002 trade show. The manufacture then saw its order book start to fill up. But this quick success put a halt to the two manufacturers’ creative energy. Mirko Heyne left the company in the summer of 2002 and became production manager at Nomos in Glashütte. However the Lang & Heyne manufacture has retained its genius and in the meantime the name of the two outstanding manufacturers has become synonymous with fine watch making in Dresden.
Marco Lang, who only felt good while sitting at a watchmaker’s table, gave up his flourishing antique watch boutique to devote himself entirely to designing watches. The small team of the Lang & Heyne manufacture finally set up in a stylish house in the residential area of “Weißen Hirsch" in Dresden. Its exclusive series of 30 to 40 watches a year only leaves the small workshop after Marco Lang has assembled and set them and once they have been signed.
Lang & Heyne watches
The watches are manufactured in the Dresden workshop but this process doesn’t merely consist of assembling anonymous, industrial and prefabricated units. On the contrary, each component passes through the manufacturer’s hands. In his search for both visual and functional excellence he refines them, meticulously and lovingly in minute detail, including parts that haven’t been manufactured in the workshop. Lang & Heyne watches are presented in a pronounced classic style taking inspiration from the "Saxon style" of the end of the 19th century, at the height of pocket watches. We rediscover the "style" of the pocket watch with the dimensions of the "Calibre I" movement (from which all complications are manufactured). Even in the layout of the gearing, nothing or almost nothing is ignored in the classic "Calibre Unitas" as all the components are recreated as they were or are modified considerably. However that may be, without exception all parts are delicately shaped and re-use old Saxon traditions, in particular the diamond counterspring, the mainspring of the balance wheel, the engraved balance bridge and a luxurious finishing with graining on the watch’s surface. The pallet bridge and the balance bridge with polished chamfering just like the enormous embedded rubies in gold settings bring out the luminosity of this technical piece of work. Even the pallet’s ruby, the smallest of all, is set with gold and held by deep blue screws. The hairspring is finished by a hand-traced curve and is "joined" according to a perfect concentric shape. By pulling on the crown, a spring gently bends on the balance’s arbor and interrupts the mechanism. The watch can thus be set to within a second.
On the "Calibre III" movement, designed for the "Moritz von Sachsen" model, the gap between the minute wheel and that of the seconds has been reduced in order to have a big dial for additional indications. The winding mechanism has been recreated to be able to set the date, month and declination indication as quickly as possible. The whole date indication mechanism is supported by an additional disc only 1.5 mm high. Despite this the date and the day of the week can be changed very quickly and is activated at midnight exactly. The "Calibre IV" is designed for a chronograph model manufactured according to an old movement manufacturing tradition (with three wheels of 200 cogs in 14 carat gold and a column wheel for accurate working). The arbor of the minute and second counters is situated at the centre (perforated centre cog).
A love of classic watches
Alongside manufacturing watches the Lang & Heyne team today is also devoted to restoring classic and complex chronometers. Besides repairs, the bulk of the work consists in going right back to each period and working according to the methods used in the past by the manufacturer of the original piece. After in-depth research and analyses, the project is defined together with the watch owner and carried out with his or her agreement.
Lang & Heyne has the necessary tools in its workshops to restore and recreate practically all missing parts. Furthermore, the company sets itself highly ambitious standards for the most complex clock and watch mechanisms.
In 2005 after a three-year candidacy Marco Lang became a member of the AHCI, the Watch making academy for independent designers. This Academy was founded more than 22 years ago, thus intended for a few privileged people and now represents the avant-garde of fine watch making. With more than 30 members who have and will continue to write watch-making history, the Academy is no longer considered to be a pool of ideas dedicated to specific technical discoveries and the subtleties of watch making. Watch lovers from around the world see the AHCI as being behind independent, innovative ideas as far as watch making is concerned and ensuring the continued growth of its members.
In a way the Lang & Heyne manufacture feels indebted to this very select club. This is why when the clocks were put back on the 28th October Marco Lang invited his "colleagues" from the AHCI to Dresden, for a weekend where the key theme was fine watch making in the company of jewellers, collectors, journalists and other watch enthusiasts. The Albrechtsberg chateau of Dresden on the edge of the river Elbe was chosen for the occasion. The watches were displayed there and important representatives from the AHCI held themed conferences. Besides a visit to the watch-making town of Dresden, the cultural programme included a visit to Semperoper and the porcelain manufacture of Meissen. ■
