Bernhard
Lederer
Bernhard Lederer is a demanding man of many talents and many passions. He embodies, and always welcomes, a variety of standpoints.
He feeds his watchmaking creation process with input from the arts, classical music, architecture and automotive fields.
Early
Life
When his grandfather gifted him a pocket watch at the age of 16, Bernhard Lederer fell for watchmaking, hard. From then on, the German-born carved his own path to watchmaking excellence.
1984
He started his apprenticeship in the Wuppertal Watch Museum workshop. By then, he was already working on the restauration of ancient timepieces. He graduated from the Pforzheim Watchmaking school in
A pragmatist and a problem-solver, his graduation project, his montre d’école, is a 1000-year perpetual calendar clock which solves the 400-year, non-leap issue, and features an 800-year accurate moonphase as well as solar and moon eclipses. It also features a gravity escapement.
Bernhard Lederer is his own man, with a unique view on design, on movement construction, on watchmaking. He never followed in anyone’s footsteps and makes a point of pride of being an inventor.
1985
He became one of the very first members of the AHCI in 1985, the year it was founded.
Early
Works
1996
Bernhard Lederer released his Trojka mysterious clock, the kind of confidential, highly complex and bespoke projects he became famous for. All the while restoring old and complicated timepieces for museums and private clients.
1997
Bernhard Lederer successfully completed a 14-meter high, monumental clock counting down to the year 1999 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Facing the strong and salty ocean breeze, the project was so complex it had been turned down by everyone in the trade.
BLU,
The Bernhard
Lederer Universe
2000
Bernhard Lederer moved to Switzerland and created his first watch brand, BLU.
This experience allowed him to showcase his recognizable sense of design. Single horns on wide and pared-down cases. Off-centered and unusual displays. Wide and unheard-of shaped hands. Original complications, including orbital tourbillons.
BLU timepieces stood out. During the golden age of watchmaking rebirth, they quickly made a name for themselves.
2007
Released in 2007, the BLU MT3 defied all conventions: it was a triple-speed (1 minute, 1 hour, 12 hours) tourbillon timepiece with no dial and no tourbillon cage for the minute tourbillon.
Gagarin
Tourbillon
2011
Introduced in 2011, the Gagarin-Tourbillon is perhaps his most famous piece, one of the most original and complex tourbillons ever.
The one-minute tourbillon cage hovers above a
108-minute rotating movement. Both are linked by a spectacular soviet-era-like architectural pillar and visible through a magnifying glass.
M.H.M. SA
2015
Located in St-Blaise, near Neuchâtel, at the foot of the Swiss Jura range, Manufacture de Haute Horlogerie et Micromécanique is the current design, construction, manufacturing and watchmaking facility where Bernhard Lederer operates. It is the heart of Lederer Watches.
M.H.M. is a workshop and a technical development office. Bernhard Lederer is tasked with restoring movements deemed impossible to repair. With inventing new complications and timepieces. With improving unfinished sub-mechanisms, all for prestigious, confidential customers among the largest brands in Switzerland.
One of M.H.M.’s most extreme-performance project is a purpose-built movement for the German Navy Diving Bomb Squad.
Manufactured in materials that are absolutely magnetism-neutral, it is resistant to 100’000 Gauss and has a magnetic signature inferior to 5 Nano-Tesla.
It is certified NATO-STANAG 2897, the NATO norm for explosive ordnance disposal equipment.
The Master of
Escapement
Project
2016
In 2016, Bernhard Lederer takes on a new challenge, maybe his biggest ever: to perfect or invent a series of six new escapements, design the movements and watches and present them to the world of watch collectors.
The series “Masters of Escapements” aims at furthering the works of the old masters Bernhard Lederer admires and at giving new form to his demanding sense of invention.
The first chapter in the “Masters of Escapements” series is the Central Impulse Chronometer.
Craftsmanship
