What happens when watchmaking steps out of its comfort zone and boundaries upheld by century-old traditions and conventions? Hublot’s MP-10 Tourbillon Weight Energy System — winner of the Red Dot Award For Product Design 2024 — gives one a taste of it.
Earlier this January, Hublot unveiled a quartet of novelties at the LVMH Watch Week, with a particular piece standing out for all the (right and wrong) reasons. The Hublot MP-10 Tourbillon Weight Energy System was launched alongside the Hublot Big Bang Unico Green Saxem, Classic Fusion Tourbillon Orlinski Yellow Magic and Spirit of Big Bang Jewellery to great and polarising effect. Whether one is a seasoned watch connoisseur or a total novice, the same few questions emerge when looking at the watch: “What is this? Is it even a watch?” “How do you tell time?” or “What is this shape?” If these questions never once crossed the mind, perhaps the specialised team in charge of the Hublot MP projects would have failed in their pursuit of avant-garde watchmaking concepts.
“For a piece to be part of our MP collection, it must not only reinvent existing complications; it must create something exclusive, invent, build and open up new avenues in watchmaking R&D. I gave our designers and watchmakers carte blanche, and this is the fruit of their labours. From now on, people will talk about the MP-10 Tourbillon Weight Energy System in Titanium in terms of ‘before’ and ‘after’”, shares Ricardo Guadalupe, Hublot’s honorary president.
The Hublot MP-15 Takashi Murakami Tourbillon Sapphire
The MP (short for Masterpiece) moniker first came into Hublot’s books in 2011 when the MP-01 was introduced to break away from the brand’s already-typecasted Big Bang identity. It was Hublot’s first-ever tonneau-shaped watch with an entirely in-house-made calibre. Since then, subsequent Hublot MP releases have become one of the manufacture’s headlining acts with their — more often than not — otherworldly shapes. Last year’s MP-15 Takashi Murakami Tourbillon Sapphire burns fresh in minds, yet its flower-shaped case sits on the lighthearted end of the spectrum compared to other MP novelties. Hublot’s tribute to marque makers Ferrari saw the birth of the MP-05 LaFerrari, which smashed the archetypal “round shaped with three hands” construct of conventional watchmaking. Conversely, the MP-02 “Key of Time” and MP-08 “Antikythera SunMoon” are testaments of Hublot’s pedigree in watchmaking complications.
It then begs the question, is this what happens when watchmaking ventures beyond its comfort zone and boundaries upheld by century-old traditions and conventions? While purists, journalists and various enthusiast groups ramble on about what watchmaking should and should not entail, the MP-10 has since snagged the Red Dot Award For Product Design 2024. Unlike the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, which assesses nominees based on horological grounds, winners of the Red Dot Award: Product Design are united by outstanding design on top of aesthetic appeal, functionality, or innovation. From watering cans to e-bikes, outdoor awnings to passenger ships, 2253 products were conferred the Red Dot Award: Product Design this year — 10 of which being watches. While the winners are not pitted against each other, it is immediately apparent that the MP-10 sets itself miles apart from the other nine watches.
A sculptural micro-blasted titanium main case reminiscent of sci-fi movie cryopods houses an equally if not more complex movement. Here, at the intersection of avant-garde watchmaking, mechanical brilliance meets futuristic aesthetics in the calibre HUB9013. Time is read off a pair of roller displays occupying the upper third, indicating the hours and minutes from top to bottom. An invisible magnifier optimises the legibility of the two displays. A circular power reserve indicator sits in the central third, with a clear green and red zone; the seconds hand ticks away in the lower third, indicated on the inclined tourbillon cage. Flanking the central time-telling module is a pair of blackened white gold vertical weights that act as the watch’s winding system. Instead of a traditional horizontal arrangement and rotor construction, Hublot reconfigured and adapted a winding system dedicated to the MP-10. When wrist motion is detected, the weights glide up and down the vertical axes, generating power for the watch. Shock absorbers housed within the two ends of the axes prevent forceful collision that would otherwise damage the movement.
And there is the matter of yet another polarising piece when Hublot unveiled the Arsham Droplet in early June 2024, made in collaboration with contemporary artist Daniel Arsham. Crafted in the same vein as a futuristic device coming out of Dune, the timepiece can be used in three ways: as a pocket watch, pendant, or table clock. One could argue that much of the creative influence came from Arsham, but would such a creation manifest itself beyond sketchbooks if the artist had worked with other watchmakers? Maybe, just maybe. Now that Hublot’s top brass has recently shuffled, who knows what the incoming CEO and product maestro Julien Tornare would bring to the table — push on where few watchmakers venture or stay where it feels most comfortable?
Once you are done with this story, click here to catch up with our September 2024 issue.