By ASHOK SOMAN

Watchmakers Golay Spierer may not have the brand recognition of many of their Swiss peers but they are an old name and true artisans and craftspeople, not unlike Philippe Dufour and Kari Voutilainen.

In November 2008, Golay Spierer introduced the world to the work of Swiss architect Angelo Lo Giudice in the form of a watch that stands timekeeping on its head.

The watch emerged from a challenge Golay Spierer laid out: to create a watch where the automatic movement was reversed, the winding mechanism crosses over the entire calibre and a clutch reset system. Such a watch has been created by Giudice.

Instead of marking the precise time of the day, this watch displays the amount of time that has passed – and it does so anticlockwise.

Unofficially the world’s only watch to actually display time anticlockwise, this view of time was very important to Giudice. To accomplish his goal, Giudice used a Soprod A10 automatic movement, suspended by glass (you can see the three pins that hold it in place in the image), that effectively turns the mechanism upside down.

Thus, winding is accomplished by the rather large ratchet visible at 12 o’clock. One sets the time via the rest mechanism on the caseback, which simply brings it all back to zero. With such an interesting working watch, we shall surely give it our full attention in due course.

Angelo Lo Giudice