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| F.P. Journe |
This exceptional watchmaker was born in 1957 in Marseilles, France. By the year 1977 he had grad uated from Paris's School of Watchmaking, after which he began working at his uncle's Parisian workshop. Remarkably, in that same year he constructed his own pocket watch outfitted with a tourbillon. Francois-Paul Journe was just twenty years of age.
This is the stuff legends are made of - just think of fourteen-year-old Daniel JeanRichard, for example. Journe, certainly aware of his exceptional talent, decided to make a go of creating and marketing his own watches, and opened his own workshops on Paris's rue de Verneuil in 1985. He joined the newly founded A.H.C.I. in 1986, finding a group of like-minded individuals with similar wills to create and the talent to match. The late eighties did a great deal to solidify Journe's reputation as an individual with a great sense of traditional
watchmaking and more than enough talent to make things happen. His work brought him a number of awards, a few of them certainly based on the unique clock he constructed for Asprey's of London in 1986. The Sympathique, as it was named, is a pendulum clock outfitted with a remontoir d'egalite. A remontoire, as it is called in English, is a constant-force device that maintains a continuous transmission of the movement's driving power to the escape wheel, thereby stabilizing the rate. The Sympathique had a number of unusual features, the most striking certainly being the minute-repeater pocket watch placed in the recess at the top of the clock. The two movements run in a synchronized manner when the watch is placed on its base. The clock's case is crafted in the finest 18- karat gold, rock crystal, and more than three thousand pieces of coral in ten different colors. Following this, a number of hand-made, unique
pocket watches outfitted with rare, traditional devices brought him the interest of both collectors and the Swiss watchmaking industry. In 1994 he was awarded with the prestigious Gaia award from La Chaux-de-Fonds's legendary museum.
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The Sympathique clock created for Asprey in London. |
Getting serious about grabbing hold of the industry, he moved to Geneva in 1996 and opened a workshop he called TIM SA. During this time he cooperated with some of the industry's biggest names, producing alarm mechanisms and mystery clocks and watches for other, exclusive companies. Feeling it was time to use his own name as a brand itself, Journe opened a new workshop in 1999, establishing
F.P. Journe -Invenit et Fecit - at the same time. Suddenly, his production was altered. From creating and manufacturing one-of-a-kind
pieces with all parts made by hand, he now had to hire other watchmakers and set up for serial production. Although his intellectual approach has remained identical, the actual manufacturing process has changed a bit. From creating just a few pieces a year, he has now gone to producing just under 600 annually, about 150 of which make it to the United States.
His premiere serial collection was based on two principles: the remontoire discussed above, and the concept of resonance. The latter phenomenon uses two separate balance wheels that move in a synchronized manner, vibrating at the same frequency, to maintain a common, constant rate. In 1999 he introduced two limited models of ninety-nine pieces, each featuring one of these principles.
The Tourbillon Souverain was the premiere
piece, and the world's only timepiece to combine a tourbillon with a constant force remontoire. In the same year he introduced his Chronornetre it Resonance, a chronometer that incorporated the principle of resonance. Journe explains why he finds this phenomenon so interesting, "With the invention of the pendulum, watchmakers noticed that their beat often interfered with their environment, and it was not unusual for a pendulum clock to stop of its own accord when the pendulum entered into resonance with the driving-weight suspended from its cords. Antide Janvier was the first to have the feeling that one might turn this disadvantage into an asset. His idea was to build two complete movements
with two precision escapements and to place them close to each other, ensuring that the two pendulums were hanging from the same construction. Just as he imagined, the pendulums recovered the energy dissipated by each other and began to beat together, thus entering into resonance." Journe's resonant chronometer also features twin independent dials, each
driven by one of the twin independent movements. The movements are both wound by one crown, and the dial also features a power reserve indicator.
In 2001 Journe proved his extraordinary sense for spatial conception when he introduced the Octa caliber. This is an automatic caliber that was entirely conceived by Journe. Although this doesn't sound like 'anything extraordinary, the fact that Journe planned it so that complications could later be added without changing the measurements of the mechanism is actually quite remarkable. Three years in research and
Journe's Tourbillon Souverain combining a tourbillon with a remontoire for the first time two years in development, Journe says of his first serial caliber, "The construction of the Octa caliber has less powerful ties with the history of watchmaking than do the remontoire or the resonance models, but it nonetheless symbolizes an horological ideal of giving timekeepers the highest possible degree of precision and autonomy!" Another remarkable feature of the movement 30 mm in diameter and 5.7 mm in height is the fact that it has an incredible five days of power reserve. To offset the classic problem of the balance representing the weak point within a movement with long power reserves, Journe created an overly large balance of 1 0.1-mm diameter.
The automatic Octa Reserve de Marche model with date from 2001 was followed by the Octa Chronograph, whose functions are naturally arranged in characteristic Journe manner on the dial - everything off-center - and the Octa Calendrier in 2002. The year 2003 saw the introduction of the Octa Lune, adding a moon phase model to the young brand's repertoire, as well as its first purpose-built women's watch, albeit one with a case diameter of 36 mm. Octa Divine also premieres both a gem-set bezel and a more conventional display of the hours and minutes. Since Divine is also outfitted with the Octa caliber, its subsidiary seconds, moon phase, and date displays have all remained in the same location as on the other models. Alongside work on his own brand, Journe has also garnered a great deal of recognition for various cooperations with other firms. Most notable among them was his work for Harry Winston Rare Timepieces in kicking off that brand's Opus line with his Opus One.
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