MB&F: Maximilian Büsser’s Legacy
9 March 2019It was 2007 when I first fell in love with an MB&F, it was the Horological Machine No.1 in Titanium, with sapphire bridges and the insane movement conceived by Peter Speake Marin and Laurent Besse… and it happened again four years later.
During 2011’s SIHH Maximilian Büsser pulled the cloth above the tray where two round watches were laying upside down, and completely changed the history of MB&F and contemporary watchmaking. At a first glance we were so stunned we didn’t realize that on the movement side there was no balance wheel… our focus was all on the insane finishing and anglages, and on the names engraved, Jean-Francois Mojon and Kari Voutilainen. We immediately realized that we were witnessing a turning point for MB&F.
When Max turned the watches and showed us the dial side I remember my heart starting to beat very fast. The huge flying balance wheel was held by two bridges on top of two small and elegant lacquered dials with roman numerals, and a strange lever placed at 6 o’clock, we learned after that it was the first vertical power reserve ever done.
Max conjugated Watchmaking’s historical codes, such as the traditional high end finishing, the big balance wheel -before the modern technology changed the rules, old balance wheels were bigger and oscillating at low frequencies- and rounded lacquered dials; XIX century icons, like the balance wheel’s bridges that reminds the tour Eiffel and the first iron and glass buildings; and modern watchmaking, like the domed crystal and the vertical power reserve.
The idea was to introduce a “Legacy Machine”, a horological creation with the MB&F touch but faithful to 1800’s traditional watchmaking, both in white and rose gold.
The Legacy Machine No.1 “LM1” has been recognized immediately as an icon, and won the following year two Grand Prix d’Horologerie de Geneve.
The Legacy Machine’s success continued with the launch of the LM2, featuring two flying balance wheels oscillating independently but connected through a differential gear, that takes the average of both to give one unique information to the gear train in order to improve the chronometry.
Max’s will to pay tribute to 18th and 19th century watchmaking led him to the creation of the Legacy Machine 101, a smaller and discrete version of the family with time only indication and power reserve, always with the distinctive flying balance wheel.
Then in 2015 Legacy Machine Perpetual came out, a true masterpiece conceived together with the Northern Irish watchmaker Stephen McDonnell, who reinvented the perpetual calendar complication by introducing a mechanical smart processor to “tell” the movement the correct year, month, date and time and make sure that no action from its owner could ever harm the movement.
Last but not least the most pure Legacy Machine ever, the Split Escapement. For the LM Perpetual Stephen McDonnell had to sort out a way to split balance wheel and escapement wheel due to the lack of space, by creating a long pinion that was connecting the two elements, almost 11mm far from each other. That’s the highlight of the most elegant MB&F wristwatch, together with the purity of the dial side’s baseplate, which is enriched by a hand frosted decoration.
MB&F is a true creative lab, as they like to refer themselves, and probably the most innovative brand in the watchmaking panorama.
We don’t know how Max and his friends could possibly surprise us again in the future, but we are definitely looking forward to it!
By Jacopo Corvo