They say that art begets more art; that the act of
creativity continues to generate and inspire other creations in turn. This is
certainly true in the case of T-Rex, the 11th collaboration between
MB&F and Switzerland’s premier clockmaker L’Épée 1839. A minimalist clock-face of Murano glass and steel,
suspended between two jointed legs that end in taloned feet - T-Rex bears slight
physical resemblance to the eponymous king of beasts. The name owes more to the
aspects of design that reveal themselves to the close observer, such as the
confluence of power and presence conveyed in the taut limbs. The literal time
capsule formed by the spherical, skeletonised body is a subliminal yet
insistent allusion to the fossilised bones that contain all we know of a
prehistoric era.
Two slim steel hands arch outwards from the centre of
the Murano glass dial, indicating the hours and minutes. Behind the dial is a
138-component movement by L’Épée 1839, crowned by a balance beating at the rate
of 2.5Hz (18,000vph). The clock is wound with a key at the back of the movement
for a maximum power reserve of eight days, while time-setting is accomplished
at the centre of the dial with the same key. T-Rex was first introduced to audiences earlier this
year as a unique piece that had been specially customised for Only Watch, the
world’s most high-profile charity watch auction. Previously, MB&F’s
contributions to Only Watch had been taken from existing collections. Tom &
T-Rex, the MB&F creation for the eighth edition of the auction, broke with
tradition by preceding the collection from which it was taken. The point of
differentiation is in the name: Tom & T-Rex comes with a rider who
represents the children suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy, who benefit
from the funds raised by Only Watch.
Through the Only Watch iteration, T-Rex has been shown
to be perfectly capable of procreation. Looking back in time, its own point of
genesis lies within an objet d’art from the desk of MB&F founder Maximilian
Büsser, a whimsical combination of a shiny round holiday bauble mounted on
metal appendages shaped like birds’ legs. When the time came to create the
Co-Creation that was to become T-Rex, Büsser and designer Maximilian Maertens
coalesced on this objet. Somehow, this oddly thought-provoking blend of organic
and inorganic elements incubated in the mind of Maertens, becoming bigger,
stronger, more fantastical - more MB&F! The legs of T-Rex are modelled directly on actual
Tyrannosaurus Rex bones, using 3D scans of fossilised dinosaur skeletons as
references to create verisimilitude in the final design. Alternating polished
and sandblasted segments allow light to interact with the legs in such a way
that make T-Rex seem agile and coiled to move, although the entire clock itself
weighs approximately 2kg and its joints are fixed in place for stability. Those with an affinity for the metaphorical will see a
memento mori of sorts in T-Rex, and
not just in its invocation of a long-extinct animal. T-Rex is a clock with legs and pretty fast-looking legs at that! - saying time can run away from us all.
Better act quickly, while you can. Live life, make art.
The Inspiration
Powerful and otherworldly, T-Rex was nevertheless drawn from a source both
whimsical yet familiar. A quirky ornament on the desk of MB&F founder
Maximilian Büsser, composed of a Christmas bauble perched atop two chicken
legs. Members of the avian species are said to be modern-day descendents of the
mighty dinosaurs of old, but the comic air of T-Rex’s inspiration had a long
way to evolve before it came to fruition. Designer Maximilian Maertens was the creative
incubator for the eventual rise of T-Rex as the 11th collaboration
between MB&F and L’Épée 1839. The 1993 film Jurassic Park was a big influence on Maertens, being the first
movie he remembered watching as a child. Said Maertens, “I just had the idea to
do something with dinosaurs, and Max (Büsser) was very interested in
biomechanical designs at the time, so we melded these two sources around his
little desk sculpture and took the next step.” T-Rex is closely modelled on the actual skeleton of a
Tyrannosaurus Rex, with Maertens studying 3D scans of dinosaur fossils to
inject authenticity into the proportions and positioning of T-Rex’s legs. In the course of designing T-Rex, Maertens even came
up with a little backstory to inform the process of developing the perfect
balance of mechanical and organic visual elements. “The story takes off from
ideas given to me by past projects of MB&F, that we have a pilot in his
starship discovering new planets. Eventually he got so far out in space that
the only way back to Earth was via a black hole, but it time-warped him back to
the time of dinosaurs and the starship was fused with a hatching dinosaur egg.
You see the remnants of the starship in the body of the clock and the movement,
the dinosaur appears via the legs, and even the black hole remains part of the design,
via the dial that sinks inwards towards the centre where time originates.”
The Movement and Body
T-Rex is powered by a 138-component movement, designed
and produced in house by L’Épée 1839, and finished to the very highest
standards of traditional Swiss clockmaking. At the very top of the hand-wound
movement, clearly visible through the skeletonised clock body surrounding it,
is a balance beating at 2.5Hz (18,000vph). The eight-day power reserve is rewound
directly via the barrel axis positioned at the back of the movement, while time
is set through the centre of the dial. Both actions are taken with the same
key. Hand-blown Murano glass forms the clock dial of T-Rex,
a material that both MB&F and L’Épée 1839 became thoroughly familiar with
in the course of creating Medusa, their 10th collaboration. T-Rex
comes in variations of green, deep blue and red Murano glass dials, which are
vividly coloured with metallic salts via age-old techniques of glassblowing. The
30-cm tall T-Rex is made of stainless
steel and palladium-plated brass and bronze, weighing
approximately 2kg distributed over two finely
sculpted feet. T-Rex comes in three limited editions of 100 pieces each, with Murano glass dials in green, deep blue or red.
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