A CLOCK FOR THE AGES

With La Quête du Temps, Vacheron Constantin marks 270 years with a masterpiece of art, music, and mechanics that redefines the very meaning of time.

- ANANDHI GOPINATH

In the watch world, anniversaries are often opportunities for spectacle—a new dial, a limited edition, a complication revisited. For its 270th anniversary, Vacheron Constantin has already delivered on that front, unveiling a coterie of celebratory watches at Watches & Wonders earlier this year. But just as the conversation shifts to next year's edition of the fair and the flood of brands joining the fair, the maison has chosen a different stage, and a different scale, for its boldest anniversary statement yet. It has built a clock. Not just any clock, but La Quête du Temps—a monumental creation that is less about timekeeping and more about time itself. Seven years in the making, with 6,293 mechanical components (2,370 dedicated to the movement alone) and no fewer than 23 complications, it is as much an act of philosophy as it is of engineering. The clock is also the subject of seven new patents. Fittingly, La Quête du Temps is the centrepiece of the Mécaniques d'Art exhibition at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF WONDER

La Quête du Temps is structured like a temple to time, each tier with its own role to play. It begins with the dome, where an automaton performs three sequences of movement. Choreographed to unfold over 90 seconds with music specially composed French musician and longtime Vacheron Constantin collaborator Woodkid, it can be activated on demand or programmed up to a day in advance.