Kollokium is not a brand. As pretentious and cliché as that sounds, it’s true. Kollokium is a project-based platform. Its purpose: explore accessible alternatives in watchmaking.
CREATION EX NIHILO
It’s been a long time coming. Kollokium was founded in 2020 by three friends. Each went down a different path in the watchmaking industry, but they all found common ground in their shared aesthetic sensibilities. After having collectively spent a lifetime contributing to the creations (and creativity) of numerous Swiss and international watch brands, Manuel Emch, Barth Nussbaumer and Amr Sindi’s mutual desire to build something from scratch became too strong to ignore. To create with no established or inherited framework. No existing brand, no defined artistic direction, no rehashed history, no constraints. The freedom to truly, fully manifest objects they envision without the compromises of structure.
Kollokium seeks to materialize timepieces that transcend the confines of traditional watchmaking while remaining obviously mechanical watches. It aims to distill and incorporate all the things that fascinate and move us, from architecture and design to contemporary art and sub-cultures. Kollokium is watchmaking in a new context, from a new vantage point.
NEUBRUTALIST HOROLOGY
A bit of post-war brutalism, some Kraftwerk synth-pop and a Philip K. Dick retro-futuristic backdrop. For Kollokium projects, it’s not so much about defining a style, but about capturing and conveying a mood. Some elements might seem familiar, though likely not things you would have encountered in a timepiece. It may appear simple enough on a first glance, but the closer you look, the more details begin to jump out at you. The textures. The depth. The contrast. The interplay of light and dark; of industrial and fantastical. The emphasis on graphics. The controlled chaos. If traditional watchmaking is a classical opera, Kollokium is a gritty sci-fi noir.
Kollokium Projekt 01 – “friends & family” pre-series
The debut output from Kollokium. This is where it all begins – and maybe ends. We’ll see. Uninspiringly dubbed K,P–n01 (Kollokium Projekt 01), Kollokium’s first release aims to immediately and unabashedly lay down the foundation for future projects. Not necessarily in the sense of design continuity, but in establishing the vibe we’re trying to put out there and the kind of creative avenues we’d like to explore.
A work of transhumanism. Lo-fi yet three-dimensional. Is it one of those pin art boards from the 80s? A miniaturized nail art-work by Gunther Uecker? A minimalist tribute to the pioneer of the “ZERO movement” Enrico Castellani? A graphical representation of a ripple? A miniature cityscape? The dial is in fact a 3D reconstruction of an intentionally pixelated image rendered by Adobe Illustrator. If you squint your eyes, you can clearly make out 12 “maxi” hour markers, with batons for the cardinal hours and circles for the others. From a certain distance, you might even brush it off as a slightly blurry “utility” type of dial. And that’s exactly what we aimed for: low-key intrigue that you can only discover up-close.
You’d be forgiven for mistaking the dial for a textured but ultimately monolithic element. We get it. It takes a certain type of masochism to conceive something this outlandish. The subtly textured black base is set with 468 individually hand-applied cylindrical hour markers (is that a world record?), which come in six different diameters and heights. Each of these cylinders is sandblasted, then filled with white Super-LumiNova (also by hand) that glows with an orange emission.
With so many elements on the dial, ensuring easy readability was factored into the equation very early on in the genesis of Projekt 01. Almost like an optical illusion, the oblong-shaped hour and minute hands are black with Super-LumiNova outlines, seemingly floating above the dial. And while there is no visible branding on the dial, there is a little signature of sorts. The second hand features an open triangle counterweight, as if it were a single strip of metal that was bent into form.
There’s beauty in rawness and imperfection. And that’s precisely what we wanted to convey through Projekt 01, starting with the case.
Without trying hard to be outlandish for edginess’ sake, the case is literally crafted like no other watch out there. Forged from 316L stainless steel, the case is not made using typical milling and machining processes at all, though the process is in fact industrial and rather old-school: die casting steel. Why? Well, because they said it couldn’t (and shouldn’t) be done. And because the desired result was one where the case would boast practically no finishing or embellishment, and instead feature a uniform, industrial heavy duty steel tool-like appearance with a specific texture that can only be produced when injecting molten steel into a cast form. It’s neither matte nor frosty, but somewhere in between. And as rough as it looks, it’s unexpectedly soft to the touch. Because of the die-casting process, the edges and angles are slightly rounded off, while the steel has a surface that is neither entirely matte nor sparkly. It’s simply die-cast steel in all its industrial glory – and quite the antithesis to the neatly polished and delicately satin-brushed finishes you’d find in just about every other watch.
The two-part case construction consists of a caseback element that takes on a sort of barrel shape paired with lugs inspired by cruciform screwdrivers, which appear as if they were chiseled out to keep only what’s structurally integral. The case middle, within which the movement is protected in a steel container, is fixed on top of this base. A cylinder, it contains the only hint of the project or model name. Part of the steel cast, the left band of the case features the project’s full internal dossier name: K,P-n01. A triangular valve-shaped crown completes the industrial look and feel of the Projekt 01.
Because there’s so much to see on the dial, we wanted the wearer to be able to take it all in from different angles. Instead of a metal bezel, the sapphire box crystal is completely level with the base of the dial. Flat on top to avoid visual distortion and coated on both sides with layers of anti-reflective coating, it provides a micro-panorama you’re not likely to forget any time soon.
Ergonomics and an overall low-key form factor were carefully considered from the very early stages of Projekt-01’s conception. There’s no such thing as one size fits all, but the Projekt-01 comes pretty close. It measures 40mm at the widest point of the caseback, while the case’s cylindrical part is 38.5mm wide. and 11mm in total height (including the sapphire glass box, which accounts for nearly half of the height). As the lugs are short and integrated with the back, the case sits close to the wrist with a compact feel.
The strap also plays a major role in making the Projekt–01 so effortless to wear. Inspired by outdoor gear (and a certain connected watch), it’s been developed by Kollokium is the perfect finishing touch. With just the right amount of elasticity to keep it securely on the wrist without getting too tight and the kind of breathability that makes it quick to dry, It’s a utilitarian’s dream. It consists of a single strap with a hook fastening system and stitched loops to easily adjust the size on the go.
The Kollokium Projekt 01 is a closed pre-series of 99 pieces that was offered to friends and family of the three founders. The first iteration of Projekt 01 will be released during the first quarter of 2024.
