Exceptional timepieces
The ultimate in Haute Horlogerie: The Berkley Grand Complication
Stemming from 11 years of development, including a year entirely devoted to its assembly, Les Cabinotiers - The Berkley Grand Complication is a milestone in contemporary watchmaking history, born from the will of its commissioner, who has chosen to give it his name.
The first Chinese perpetual calendar
The main innovation of Les Cabinotiers - The Berkley Grand Complication is its traditional Chinese perpetual calendar. Given the particularities of its complex and irregular cycle, the mechanical programming of in-house Calibre 3752 through to the year 2200 is a feat of horological genius.
Focus
The world's most complicated watch
A complex and irregular system.
Chinese calendar months are lunar and begin on the day of the new moon. Depending on the lunar month, the common Chinese year can, therefore, have 353, 354 or 355 days and the embolismic year 383,384 or 385 days.
Vacheron Constantin’s watchmakers went so far as to offer a disc-type display of the exact - yet by definition variable - date of the Chinese New Year. This in itself represents another major accomplishment, as this key date in the nation’s social life fluctuates continuously between January 21 and February 21.
An astronomical watch par excellence, the Gregorian perpetual calendar is displayed on the watch’s second face. The display comprises a retrograde date at 12 o’clock, complemented by the day of the week (9 o’clock counter), the month (3 o’clock counter) and the leap-year cycle (1 o’clock aperture).
An astronomical watch
Vacheron Constantin’s watchmakers did their utmost to incorporate the full range of horology’s noblest complications into this watch, be they in the realm of astronomical and chiming functions, as well as useful complications in terms of chronometry, alarms and time zones - all governed by a determination to achieve very high precision.
Focus
Sky and signs
The silhouette of the Chinese zodiac animal for the current year appears in an apertune positioned below the moon phases.
The watch’s astronomical references are not confined to calendars. Also visible on the back is a sky chart with the constellations appearing in real time as observed from Shanghai. For the sake of accuracy, this celestial disc makes one complete rotation in one sidereal day.
The precision phases and age of the moon appear on the 12 o’clock counter, with no need for corrections over a full 1,027 years.
Iconic timepieces
Grande sonnerie and alarms
The Vacheron Constantin watchmakers were keen to equip Calibre 3752 with a Grande Sonnerie mechanism featuring a Westminster carillon. This chimes the tune sounded by the bells of Big Ben – on London’s Tower of Parliament - with 5 gongs and 5 hammers, complemented by an alarm.
Complications
A high-precision watch
This addition of astronomical and chiming complications should not detract from the watch’s primary function, which is to display the time – or better still, to display the time in several time zones and even to measure short times, with chronometric precision.
Tourbillon
Triple-Axis tourbillon regulator
The master watchmakers developed a triple-axis armillary tourbillon regulator, operatingat a frequency of 2.5 Hz (18,000 vibrations per hour) and fitted with a spherical balance-spring, offering a high degree of precision in the operation of the complications.
Display and chronograph
Precision display and split-second chronograph
The time display is of the regulator type: the hour hand (12 o’clock counter on the front) is separate from the central minute hand and the second hand (6 o’clock counter).
To enhance this display, the small seconds are the retrogade kind. The watch’s chronograph, accurate to the nearest fifth of a second, features a split-seconds function.
World time
Second time zone and world time
The watch displays world time, a function visible on the back. An aperture at 10 o'clock enables the wearer to select one of the 24 time zones with the time differential in relation to the Greenwich meridian. Below, the 9 o’clock counter shows the hour and minutes over a 12-hour period in a second time zone, with the corresponding day/night indication at 11 o’clock.
Exceptional timepieces
Finishing and hand decorations
The time devoted to finishing each part the Berkley Grand Complication not only lends beauty to the case and the sweep of its 31 hands. The extreme attention to detail ensures legibility by distinguishing each feature through colour, texture and material, while maintaining an elegantly restrained palette.
