A Home to THE EXQUISITE

Vogue Singapore pays a visit to Cartier's Maison des Métiers d'Art in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a farmhouse where craftsmanship reigns supreme.

- Words GORDON NG

Craftsmanship," I am told time and again, “is at the service of creation.” I am in Switzerland, standing in a rustic, brown wood farmhouse. After several days in Geneva at the Watches and Wonders fair, and being inundated by the latest in horology, Cartier has offered a change of pace. A drive up north and east to visit its Maison des Métiers d'Art in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a city in the Jura Mountains in the Neuchâtel canton.

This Maison des Métiers d'Art was opened by the French jewellery and watchmaking brand in 2014, dedicated to the vanishingly rare artistic handcrafts that go into some of its most beautiful and experimental designs. Rather than stretches of factory floors that thrum with machinery, there are artisan workbenches marked by quiet, calm concentration.

The building we are in is an 18th-century farmhouse, built in the Bernese style with large, steeply sloped roofs. It’s a bit of an anachronism in La Chaux-de-Fonds, which is about 70-odd kilometres west of Bern. This old architectural style is underpinned by wood structures, the fruit of logging industries— characteristics that Cartier has maintained even as it renovated the space to create its haven of craft. Inside and out, it represents a fusion of tradition and modernity that underlines the maison’s approach to time-honoured crafts.