HH Magazine

At the head of research and development at Franck Muller since 2002, Pierre-Michel Golay is setting up his own brand within the group. A tribute to the talent and creativity of a man who has devoted his life to complications… in all simplicity.

Christophe Roulet

"Vartan Sirmakes, CEO of the Franck Muller Group, came to see me one day. He told me he could see how a watch with a lot of hands, hence a lot of complications, would fit in the brand's collections. I responded with the Aeternitas Mega, version 4 of which has 18 hands and five discs." Nothing could sum up Pierre-Michel Golay better than this statement. An inspired movement designer, he talks about his work with disconcerting simplicity. As though the task of imagining, designing and producing a movement with 25 complications, including a Westminster chimes grande sonnerie, a secular calendar, an equation of time, a tourbillon and a split-seconds chronograph, and an astounding 1,500 parts, was nothing out of the ordinary. All the more so as Pierre-Michel Golay is of the old school and still draws his movements with pencil and compass. He leaves the CAD part to his colleagues, who refer back to his blueprints. Together they form a close-knit team, with Pierre-Michel Golay at their head, in charge of R&D for the Franck Muller Group.

The first six original movements

"I'm the last living witness of old-style watchmaking," Pierre-Michel Golay likes to say. Born in 1935 to a family of watchmakers in the Vallée de Joux, he took his first steps as an apprentice repasseur or finisher in Le Sentier, earning his diploma with not just any piece. "My father was a teacher. He showed me a photograph of a perpetual calendar and suggested I might like to make one as my diploma piece," he continues. "With nothing more to guide me, I made my own perpetual calendar." Again, nothing out of the ordinary. And so he began his career as a watchmaker by day and, inspired by his love of bel canto, a singer by night. His first port of call would be Patek Philippe, then Audemars Piguet before the decisive encounter with the designer Gérald Genta. "I worked with Gérald Genta from 1973 to 1998," he explains. "He wasn't making watches at that time, but we shared the same passion for mechanical movements. This went completely against the grain in what was after all the quartz era." No matter: Pierre-Michel Golay rose to the challenge and produced some exemplary complications, among them the thinnest minute repeater, just 2.72mm high.

When, in the late 1990s, Gérald Genta changed strategies, Pierre-Michel Golay had no alternative than to join the École d'Horlogerie de Genève. Until, that is, his meeting with Vartan Sirmakes once again changed the course of a career that should have seen him enjoying a peaceful retirement in the Valais mountains. Anything but! The watchmaker made his debut with Frank Muller in 2002 and immediately began working on the Revolution 1, 2 and 3, followed by Evolution, and the Aeternitas and Aeternitas Mega ranges. Several patents crowned his work, including for bi- and tri-axial tourbillons and a secular calendar. "Vartan Sirmakes came to see me and asked would I like to set up my own brand within the group," Pierre-Michel Golay recalls. "Why not, I thought to myself. Except that I didn't have any movements of my own, and I could hardly see myself putting in an order with ETA." It took him four years to develop the new collection, which draws on six separate calibres: an eight-day movement with small seconds, a tourbillon, an eight-day mystery tourbillon, a perpetual calendar, an annual calendar, a minute-repeater and a split-seconds chronograph. Combinations of these different functions give a dozen models, signed Pierre-Michel Golay, with another dozen in the pipeline, including a grande complication.

A distinctive style and pure forms

Needless to say, each of Pierre-Michel Golay's watches bears the master's signature of complicated movements but also a constant striving to incorporate decorated and hand-engraved parts whose very form contributes to an overall harmony that will be one of the new brand's hallmarks. "My starting point for any new movement is a mock-up of the dial. This will guide me as I imagine the shape and position of the parts, which I draw with a compass. We're also lucky that we are fully integrated within the group. All my models are originals and every single part is made in-house, including the balances, escape wheels and pallets." Did Pierre-Michel Golay come up against any difficulties when making his collection? He barely need think about his answer: "I've been surrounded by watches for the past fifty years. When you've made a minute repeater just 2.72mm high, there's nothing you can't do. But to answer the question, I'd say the trickiest part was centring the fixed wheel for the mystery tourbillon. Other than that, no major problems…"

The first Pierre-Michel Golay watches will be available towards the end of the year, with around a hundred pieces scheduled for 2009 and twice that number next year. Interested parties are already on a waiting list. Again, nothing out of the ordinary! ■

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