Chronotope

Anton Suhanov, an independent watchmaker and creator of the triple-axis tourbillon table clocks, presents the new Chronotope wristwatch with a rare peripheral automatic winding and other fascinating features.

When developing the Chronotope watch, Anton Suhanov never missed an opportunity to equip it with complications in his typical, spectacular manner. Of course, this applies in full to the peripheral self-winding mechanism, but the first glance at the dial makes it clear that the main character of this spectacle was to be the Chronotope's retrograde day of the week display. The display itself is located at the top of the dial along with a classic date window, while its important part, a clearly visible snail eccentric, is placed at the bottom of the dial. With the design of this complication, Anton Suhanov has shown that he is not only a watchmaker and developer, but also a designer who thinks outside the box. A ruby roller rolls along the stepped spiral attached to the tip of the lever for the day of the week mechanism. The snail eccentric is designed so that six ruby pallets are inserted into it at the points where the roller rises when switching to a new day of the week. They virtually eliminate friction and wear in the lifting areas, where the increasing roller pressure would otherwise lead to increased friction. At the same time, the ruby red pallets make the snail eccentric look like a fossilized ammonite shell, a unique and appealing feature of the Chronotope watch. Looking at the dial, we find three more ruby pallets – these are used as colored tips on all three hands and cast fantastically beautiful reflections on the rhodium-plated dial scales.

But that is not the end of the story. The other ruby jewel, a cap jewel, was set in the counterweight of the central seconds hand. The jewel has a convex shape and was therefore transformed by Anton Suhanov’s imagination into a miniature watch magnifying glass. This can easily be seen when the counterweight of the seconds hand moves over the markings on the dial, including the brand logo. This is an extremely rare situation in watchmaking, where the same components are used both as functional parts of the watch caliber and as a design element. Another ruby cap jewel adorns the button for switching the day of the week display – with this button, the owner of the watch can take a virtual journey through time one or more weeks ahead while enjoying the view of a well-functioning retrograde display. The design of the day of the week display is unusual: in the arched opening there is a curtain with the inscription “Today”, and the days of the week from “Monday” to “Sunday” are printed along the opening. At midnight, the curtain jumps to the next day and at midnight from Sunday to Monday back to Monday.

A few more important points should be added to the list of Anton Suhanov’s design innovations implemented in the Chronotope watch. Firstly, these are ‘tweezer hands” with extraordinary ruby tips – mind you, not every watchmaker manages to create their own hand design. Secondly, titanium chatons in a sky-blue shade, the color of which is repeated in other elements of the movement, namely in two screwed plates and a decorative cover of the peripheral rotor. The traditional material for making chatons is gold, while titanium is apparently being used for the first time for this purpose. In addition, Anton Suhanov is probably making colored chatons for the first time. Thirdly, there is an unusual power reserve indicator with two wheels, which is placed exactly in the center of the movement on the back of the watch. It is also noteworthy that the movement’s power reserve bridge is shaped like a snail and its unusually long, hand-polished bevel has a curved “claw” with a carefully crafted acute angle, very much in the tradition of haute horlogerie.

When developing the new Su200.10 caliber, Anton Suhanov used the Swiss-made Eta 2824 movement, known for its reliable construction, as a “donor”. The standard central rotor automatic winding module has been replaced by a peripheral winding module developed by Anton Suhanov, and additional complications have been added. The complication modules are located both on the dial side and on the back of the caliber, which certainly makes the design of the new caliber remarkable. Unique features include a fine adjustment module with a rotating wheel mounted on top of the balance cock.

The Chronotope watch was developed by Anton Suhanov under the influence of the concept of the chronotope (from the ancient Greek χρόνος “time” and τόπος “place”) by the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin. Bakhtin’s purely scientific concept, which he proposed to analyze the spatio-temporal construction of literary plots and genres, is today often perceived as one of the essential features of the development of culture and civilization in general. Anton Suhanov believes that this concept is quite suitable for taking an unusual, fascinating look at the history of watchmaking.