Things are constantly evolving and mutating at Urwerk. The UR-120, released last year, brought the brand’s hallmark satellite wandering indication of time to its next level. Now, Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei are pushing the limits of Urwerk’s timepieces by launching a time-telling device without hours and minute hands, nor a case, dial, or crown. This is Urwerk’s newest creation – the Space-Time Blade in collaboration with Dalibor Farny.

The exceptional Space-Time Blade – the first in an upcoming series that may be unveiled in 2024 – will be auctioned to benefit the Only Watch 2023, which has been tirelessly fighting against Duchenne muscular dystrophy for the past decade.

Standing roughly 5’4” tall and weighing 85 lbs, the Space-Time Blade has been designed to further Urwerk’s pursuit of representing time within the broader context of the cosmos. Its base is an Urwerk bronze crown, an imposing and oversized structure topped by a glass dome. Beneath the glass dome, there are eight vertically aligned Nixie bulbs, each individually custom-shaped using a blowtorch. Each glass tube is meticulously filled with low-pressure neon gas and features a wire-mesh anode, with cathodes forming the numerals. A separate cathode is precision-made for each unit from 0 to 9. Dalibor Farny, one of the world’s foremost experts at Nixie tube lamps, has his fingerprints all over the technical elements of the creation.

These thin, fragile bulbs display both the time (hours, minutes, seconds) as well as a distance in kilometers, that of the Earth's rotation. This is an evolutionary upgrade to the distance of Earth’s rotation in kilometers shown on UR-100, providing a sense of our time in everyday life in light of the universe’s magnitude around us. The equally remarkable remote control driving the display of this extraordinary timepiece evokes the power of a lightsaber, presiding over the Space-Time Blade's displays. It can be set to six different positions:

1. Time indication in hours, minutes, seconds

2. Time indication in hours, minutes, seconds, 1/10 and 1/100 of a second

3. Indication of kilometers covered in one day (Earth's rotation at the Equator)

4. Indication of kilometers traveled in one day (Earth's revolution around the Sun)

5. Indication of kilometers traveled in one year (Earth's revolution around the sun)

6. Maintenance process

More than anything else, the Space-Time Blade is representative of Urwerk’s constant desire to experiment with new forms of time-telling. The brand’s Special Projects are full of some of the most creative executions of timekeeping devices in the modern era, and the Space-Time Blade continues that tradition. We’re sure that this will command a high hammer price for the charitable efforts of Only Watch on November 5, 2023.

Introducing Urwerk's Space-Time Blade for Only Watch 2023