Dissecting The World’s Most Complicated Watch: Vacheron Constantin’s Berkley Grand Complication

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About a month ago, at Watches & Wonders 2024, Vacheron Constantin had the entire watch world in shock and awe as they unveiled the world’s most complicated mechanical watch with a staggering record 63 complications, including a world-first Chinese Perpetual Calendar, Gregorian Perpetual Calendar, and nine total departments of complications. This herculean horological marvel demanded 11 years of research and another year exclusively for assembly.

For nearly a decade, Vacheron Constantin represented the last word in constructing mega-complication movements with 2015’s Ref. 57260 – a made-to-order pocket watch celebrating the maison’s 260th anniversary, housing no fewer than 57 complications. Vacheron believed their Ref. 57260 to be a window into the future of hyper-horlogerie, indicating matters of astronomy, calendars, striking time, and chronometry. Tallying 2,600 components, measuring two inches in diameter and weighing two pounds heavy, this titan of timekeeping demanded a total of eight years of R&D – which makes us wonder – why anyone would wait nearly a decade for a watch to be built. The answer, hedonistically underlined, is something only those who could afford to commission such a project would understand and relate to – ‘the pursuit of greatness’.

The challenge links back to the 1920s and 1930s when automotive mogul James Ward Packard and banker Henry Graves commissioned Vacheron Constantin and Patek Philippe, respectively, to create history’s most intriguing watches. Even though those timepieces took years to build, they’re revered as record-breaking works of art, and the names of both commissioners are eternally engraved in their legacy.

What’s Behind the Name?

The title – “Berkley Grand Complication”, references the commissioner of the timepiece, W. R. Berkley – the billionaire owner of the W. R. Berkley insurance holding corporation and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of New York University. It was also revealed that Berkley commissioned the previous record-holding timepiece, the Vacheron Ref. 57260, as well – making him the owner of the world’s first and second-most complicated watches. Vacheron also confirms that their grail super-complication from 1935 to 2005, the “King Farouk” pocket watch – crafted on request of an Egyptian monarch, is also owned by Berkley.

The Berkley Grand Complication: A Tale of Triumph, Ambition, and Remarkable Human Endeavor

Before delving into the Berkley Grand Complication’s hefty roster of complications, let’s talk about the hands that pieced this utterly intricate monster of horlogerie together. The team of three Vacheron Les Cabinotiers master watchmakers spent 11 years merely in research and development for this bespoke timepiece, and another year exclusively dedicated to assembling it. If we do the math, Vacheron Constantin began working on this marvel even before they completed the 57260!

Measuring 98 millimetres in diameter, 50.5 millimetres thick, cased in 18-carat white gold, and bearing 2,877 components, the Berkley Grand Complication is simply a juiced-up evolution of the 57260 retaining its dimensions. What’s new is bumping up the complication count from 57 to 63 and swapping out the Hebraic perpetual calendar for a world-first Chinese perpetual calendar (set until 2200).

Understanding The Chinese Perpetual Calendar’s Complexities

Christian Selmoni, Vacheron Constantin’s Style & Heritage Director highlights the Shengxiao calendar’s complexity, “Using three mechanisms, or which our watchmakers call ‘brains’, we’ve managed to control the calendar’s 19-year Metonic cycle (a period of 235 lunations), New Year dares, sexagesimal cycle consisting of 60 combinations including 10 celestial stems and 12 earthly branches, and its solar agricultural cycle. A veritable feat of micro-engineering extravagance”.

Since ancient times and observed in cultures worldwide, timekeeping has always looked to the stars and celestials. This Shengxiao calendar haunts even the mightiest of Swiss horologists due to its irregularities, and transcribing these ancient algorithms into geared mechanisms was a behemoth challenge. Much like the Hebriac and other Asian calendars, the Chinese calendar follows the Metonic cycle but realises its discrepancies in the length of the lunar and solar cycles, which synchronise once every 19 years. More so, while the Chinese calendar spans 29 or 30 days a month, the average lunar cycle is 29.53 days, resulting in an 11-day shorter year compared to a solar year. To tackle this, the three Les Cabinotiers watchmakers devised a Chinese calendar mechanism which employs a 13th intercalary/embolismic month every second or third year, tallying seven over the 19-year Metonic cycle.

That’s Not All…

While this sounds exhausting already, their next obstacles were the Chinese solar year and the Zodiac. The latter consists of 10 celestial stems and 12 earthly branches – resulting in a total of 60 combinations.
The celestial stems include Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren and Gui. They are ruled by five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, further polarised by feminine or masculine (yin and yang).
On the other hand, the branches refer to the 12 Shengxiao animals: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.

Vacheron employed a jumping display of the 10 celestial steps at nine o’clock, while at three o’clock, it indicated the 12 earthy branches. Resting under the hour and moonphase display (accurate to 1,027 years) at 12 o’clock, we have an aperture which indicates the Zodiac animal, referred against the celestial stem in the 60-year-cycle. Flip this horlogerie heavyweight over, and you’ll be greeted by a Chinese agricultural calendar’s 24 solar periods, including months, seasons, solstices, and equinoxes.

Precious, Intricate Yet Precise

Amidst its gargantuan complexity, Christian Selmoni reasserts the timepiece’s undying accuracy, “While we don’t claim the Berkley Grand Complication to be a chronometer as it hasn’t been tested by the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute (COSC), in-house testing has indicated that this Les Cabinotiers marvel exceeds COSC requirements, with a daily tolerance margin of -4 to +6 seconds. Furthermore, it bares the Hallmark of Geneva, guaranteeing provenance, precision craftsmanship, and reliability.”

Almost Overlooked

Selmoni adds, “Elegance shouldn’t go unnoticed in the thick of mechanical poetry. Vacheron Constantin embraces hand-finishing treatments as one of our signatory feats of High Watchmaking, with techniques adapted to all surfaces, including bevelling, rounding off, circular graining, straight graining, etc. In regular operations, we apply these treatments to 150 components – imagine the scale of work here with 2,877 components. Being a double-sided non-open-worked timepiece, it is only until you open the watch that you witness the intricacies.”

Delving deeper into the dossier tallying up to the record-breaking 63 complications, here’s a full list compartmentalised by function and type:

Time measurement (9)

1. Regulator-type hours, minutes and seconds for mean solar time
2. Retrograde second for mean solar time
3. Day and night indication for reference city
4. Visible spherical armillary tourbillon regulator with spherical balance spring
5. Armillary sphere tourbillon
6. World time indication for 24 cities
7. Second time zone hours and minutes (on 12 hours display)
8. Second time zone day and night indication
9. System to display the second time zone for the Northern or Southern hemispheres

Gregorian Perpetual Calendar (7)

10. Gregorian perpetual calendar
11. Gregorian days of the week
12. Gregorian months
13. Gregorian retrograde date
14. Leap-year indication and four-year cycle
15. Number of the day of the week (ISO 8601 calendar)
16. Indication for the number of the week within the year (ISO 8601 calendar)

Chinese Perpetual Calendar (11)

17. Chinese perpetual calendar
18. Chinese number of the day
19. Chinese name of the month
20. Chinese date indication
21. Chinese zodiac signs
22. 5 elements and 10 celestial stems
23. 6 energies and 12 earthly branches
24. Chinese year state (common or embolismic)
25. Month state (small or large)
26. Indication for the Golden number within the 19-year Metonic cycle
27. Indication for the date of the Chinese New Year in the Gregorian calendar

Chinese Agricultural Perpetual Calendar (2)

28. Chinese agricultural perpetual calendar
29. Indications of seasons, equinoxes and solstices with solar hand

Astronomical Indications (9)

30. Sky chart (calibrated for Shanghai)
31. Sidereal hours
32. Sidereal minutes
33. Sunrise time (calibrated for Shanghai)
34. Sunset time (calibrated for Shanghai)
35. Equation of time
36. Length of the day (calibrated for Shanghai)
37. Length of the night (calibrated for Shanghai)
38. Phases and age of the moon, one correction every 1027 years

Split-seconds Chronograph (4)

39. Fifths of a second chronograph (1-column wheel)
40. Fifths of a second split-second chronograph (1 column wheel)
41. 12-hour counter (1 column wheel)
42. 60-minute counter

Alarm (7)

43. Progressive alarm with single gong and hammer striking
44. Alarm strike/silence indicator
45. Choice of normal alarm or carillon striking alarm indicator
46. Alarm mechanism coupled to the carillon striking mechanism
47. Alarm striking with choice of grande or petite sonnerie
48. Alarm power-reserve indication
49. System to disengage the alarm barrel when fully wound

Westminster Carillon (8)

50. Carillon Westminster chiming with 5 gongs and 5 hammers
51. Grande sonnerie passing strike
52. Petite sonnerie passing strike
53. Minute repeating
54. Night silence feature (between 22.00 and 08.00 hours – hours chosen by the owner)
55. System to disengage the striking barrel when fully wound
56. Indication for grande or petite sonnerie modes
57. Indication for silence / striking / night modes

Additional features (6)

58. Power-reserve indication for the going train
59. Power-reserve indication for the striking train
60. Winding crown position indicator
61. Winding system for the double barrels
62. Hand-setting system with two positions and two directions
63. Concealed flush-fit winding crown for the alarm mechanism