Our Take

When Urwerk introduced the UR-112 Aggregat in October, 2021, we were excited to see a new timepiece in their Special Project line. It was a departure from the brand’s signature wandering-hour indication. There’s no carousel with satellites or 120-degree aperture for minute markers. This is a fresh, reimagined timepiece with the fingerprints of Urwerk’s creative duo all over it. Felix Baumgartner, Martin Frei, and their team have done it again with their third model to date. This is the UR-112 Aggregat Back to Black in DLC-treated titanium and steel.

Drawing its lineage back to the UR-CC1 and UR-111C, the digital jumping hour indicator and a shared case profile carry the past into the present. There’s clear connections to the retired UR-105 CT as well with its hinged protective cover, albeit with a new opening/closing mechanism. It makes sense that Urwerk coined the term “Aggregat” for the UR-112 as this timepiece ties together so many of the design and watchmaking themes across different models and series.

What’s new here is an entirely novel caliber from Urwerk with a massive, several centimeter long central shaft driving power from the movement to the twin indicators of time, displaying hours and minutes. It’s also the first timepiece where time-telling precision, minute to minute, has been freed by jumping five minute increments. We can see the Urwerk team pushing the boundaries of their own engineering capabilities. With the digital second on the opposite extreme of the case, everything is powered by a single source of energy. To do so, tolerances are tight and each display receives exactly what it needs to operate optimally with no energy wasted. As we expect from Urwerk, this is the pinnacle of creative watchmaking with an eye on pushing the limits of design and mechanics.

The Details

UR 112 Aggregat Back to Black

Caliber: UR-13.01 automatic

Escapement: Swiss lever-type

Case: Width 42 mm; length 51 mm; thickness 16 mm - DLC treated titanium and steel - Pressure tested to 3 ATM / 100 ft / 30 m

Display: Jumping digital hours and trailing digital minutes on satellite prisms; digital seconds; power-reserve indicator

Movement Materials" Aluminum hours and minutes satellite prisms; titanium transmission shaft, silicon seconds wheel

Case Materials: DLC treated titanium and steel

Surface Finishing: Circular-graining, sandblasting, Côtes de Genève, polished screw heads