The First Manufacture
How Jaeger-LeCoultre, one of the Swiss watch industry’s most historically important players, came to be.
VALLÉE DE JOUX, nestled in the Jura mountains, is Switzerland at its postcard best: rolling farmland, cows and nearby peaks that promise skiready snowfall. And it has watchmakers, of course. More than a few big names make their home here: Audemars Piguet, Breguet and Blancpain to name a few, as well as Jaeger-LeCoultre.
Jaeger-LeCoultre is one of the most established names in the watch industry, known especially for its movement prowess. The brand has always been at the village of Le Sentier, in the heart of Vallée de Joux. The manufacture building looms large and a closer inspection reveals it as a hodge-podge assemblage of various periods of architecture – signs of success over the years as various expansions and additions were added over time.
The central building of modest sizing is Antoine LeCoultre’s original atelier, which he built out of the family barn in 1833 as an ambitious 30-yearold. From a family of watchmakers, LeCoultre was intimately familiar with the craft – and apparently frustrated with the way things were being done. At the time, the various movement production disciplines were split up into one-man cottage workshop industries with little communication. By bringing these skills together under one roof, LeCoultre founded the first manufacture as we know the concept today.
It quickly flourished. LeCoultre was a watchmaker and precision-obsessed inventor in his own right, developing the first tool capable of measuring the micron in 1844; one of his other significant inventions was an early key-less winding and setting system for pocket watches in 1847. The atelier’s first extension was in 1866, and a separate building was constructed in 1888. By this time, LeCoultre was a reputed supplier of components and calibres – especially complicated ones – and was referred to as La Grande Maison. The manufacture employed hundreds of watchmakers and was one of the biggest in Vallée de Joux.
Today, Jaeger-LeCoultre employs more than 1,000 people at the manufacture, about 200 of whom are watchmakers. The rest are dedicated to the various disciplines of watch construction; there are 180 skillsets in all. Expansion never stopped. The building that houses the high complication and Atmos clock ateliers, for example, was built in the 1960s. The manufacture now covers 25,000sqm. Under one roof, it builds movements, cases them, and even has its own engravers, enamellers and jewellers – it likely has even exceeded LeCoultre’s dreams of watchmaking integration.
LeCoultre’s atelier forms the centre of the manufacture, though it has been reworked into the Heritage Gallery. The centrepiece is the spiral staircase on which are strung examples of the 1,200-plus calibres that Jaeger-LeCoultre has developed – including Calibre 101, made in 1928 and which remains the smallest calibre in the world – and displays of its iconic timepieces including the Reverso, Memovox and Geophysic. The Atmos clock and its ingenious self-powering mechanism are well-represented by shelves upon shelves of examples, some highly decorated.