Czapek & Cie Antarctique Flying Tourbillon

Advertising

Czapek & Cie Antarctique Flying Tourbillon

New
Antarctique
Flying Tourbillon
News

Czapek puts a new spin
on the tourbillon regulator
La Cote des Montres - March 25th, 2025

Into the vortex
Czapek puts a new spin on the tourbillon regulator

Czapek & Cie introduces the Antarctique Tourbillon, driven by the new in-house Calibre 9 with a flying tourbillon regulator. The watch features a dramatic new guilloché pattern on the dial – the ‘Singularité’, and a striking architecture. This launch marks the beginning of the 10^th anniversary year since the revival of Czapek & Cie, which coincides with the 180^th anniversary of the namesake watchmaking Maison founded in 1845 by François Czapek, whose spirit continues to guide the company today.

When Czapek conceived the Antarctique as the quintessentially modern sporty-chic watch, it was always intended as a canvas for creativity, to be constantly revisited and renewed.

“Our collectors are always asking us ‘what’s next?’ with the Antarctique,” explains Czapek CEO Xavier de Roquemaurel. After the Rattrapante, we decided to take a perhaps unexpected direction: creating a new and sophisticated expression of a two-century-old regulator: the tourbillon. Our starting point was, as always, to play with the clash between legacy and avant-gardism and this new in-house tourbillon calibre is the outcome.”

Taking advantage of the form of the new tourbillon, Czapek has introduced a daring movement architecture with slender bridges revealing the beauty of the underlying mechanics and coupled it with a dial that harnesses classical métiers d’art in a new and contemporary ‘vortex-style’ guilloché design.

The new
in-house Calibre 9

defined by purity of line

Reflecting Czapek’s unwavering pursuit of Beauty, the purity of the mechanism became the main design driver for the new in-house movement, Czapek Calibre 9. The fundamental principle was that that the three key elements – tourbillon, gear train and barrel – should be revealed on the dial side, perfectly aligned on the vertical axis and appearing as airy and light as possible. The open-worked flying tourbillon appears to hover between the main plate and dial, directly connected to the gear train, which floats in the centre of the dial beneath an extremely long and finely curved minutes bridge. The barrel dominates the upper section of the dial, floating in an aperture beneath an open-worked bridge.

“Our pursuit of aesthetics drives us to create mechanical beauty,”, says Xavier de Roquemaurel. ”It’s an iterative process, where changing a line changes both mechanics and aesthetics, which can lead to an intense ping-pong between the constructor-engineer and the designer-artist… with me playing the wild card in the middle.“

The result is amplified by great visual depth, with curves and convex surfaces complemented by slender bridges; all angles are hand-polished and the top arms of the tourbillon cage are satin-polished, creating fascinating plays of light and shadow.

The new calibre also testifies to significant technical prowess from the new geometry for the tourbillon, which dictated a finely machined convex titanium cage, to the anticlockwise crown wheel that required the development of a new proprietary toothing.

Calibre 9 is the first Czapek calibre not only designed, conceived and constructed in-house but also machined mostly in-house. However, as Xavier de Roquemaurel points out, this does not signify a wish for full vertical integration. Emphasising that Czapek will always defend the principle of établissage, he explains: “We want freedom – hence the capacity to produce elements in-house. But we don’t want to make everything ourselves; for us, freedom also means the ability to choose and collaborate with the best specialist partners in any given area. That is what enables us to maintain agility and independence.” He also points out the invaluable sense of ‘family’ among the Maison’s regular partners. “These values are deeply embedded in the philosophy underlying our 10^th anniversary celebration and our future,” he says.

The mechanics
and aesthetics

An immutable bond

To amplify the beauty of the mechanics, Czapek called on Metalem, with whom Czapek has been collaborating since the beginning, to develop a new, trompe l’œil guilloché design. The result is a dramatic vortex effect, giving the impression of infinite depth.

Czapek has named the new pattern Singularité – from the astronomical term singularity, meaning those places in the universe where the standard laws of physics break down, making space and time infinite and undifferentiated – best exemplified by black holes.

The pattern may look deceptively simple but is very difficult to execute: unlike a classical guilloché pattern, in which the guillocheur cuts lines at different angles that always start from a single point, in Singularité, the starting point moves with each passage of the lathe.

Enhancing the purity of the mechanical structure and the infinity effect of the guilloché, the hour markers are not set on the dial but are part of the flange. The bridges – including the soaring curve of the gear train bridge – are integrated to the main plate through the guilloché dial plate.

Since its very beginning, Czapek has always liked to offer collectors a certain freedom of personalization, so that they can wear a watch that’s just like them. That’s why,the Antarctique Tourbillon will be offered in a choice of three dial colours: Glacier Blue, Photon Sphere (a 5N gold hue) and the mythical grey Secret Alloy, a limited-edition of 50 pieces. All iterations will be proposed in stainless steel.

Redesigning
the case

an ode to transparency and curves

The case has been redesigned to echo the curvilinear aesthetic of the mechanism and dial. Taking the curved glass box principle of the Antarctique Rattrapante as the starting point, the front and back sapphire crystals have been subtly raised. On the reverse side, this creates the impression that there is no bezel and, indeed, the engravings that would normally appear on a caseback bezel are done inside the crystal by metallisation – executed in mirror style so as to read ‘true’ from the outside.

To amplify the trompe l’œil effect and create the impression that it is floating in the air, the surface of the gold winding rotor is also convex. Moreover, Michèle Rothen, Czapek’s cherished independent master engraver, hand-engraved it with a black-hole-inspired pattern similar to the guilloché Singularité.

The Antarctique Tourbillon will be offered with the same stainless-steel bracelet as other models in the collection, with a micro-adjustment, a quick-change system and a second rubber strap included.

The Antarctique Tourbillon will be available for pre-order at the brand’s authorised dealers worldwide, the boutique in Geneva at rue de la Corraterie 18, and at Czapek.com.

About
de Czapek & Cie

Czapek is a contemporary watchmaking Maison created in the spirit of François Czapek, a 19th-century Czech-born Polish watchmaker. In 1832 Czapek escaped from political turmoil in Warsaw and fled to Geneva, where he created a series of businesses during the 1830s. After establishing Czapek & Cie in 1845, he became the official watchmaker of Prince Napoleon and opened the first watchmaking boutique on Place Vendôme in Paris.

The Czapek & Cie name was reborn in 2015 by a group of watch enthusiasts who sought to revive the Maison’s heritage and craftsmanship. Inspired by an 1850s Czapek & Cie pocket watch, the leading model of the first collection, Quai des Bergues 33bis, won the 2016 GPHG Public Prize. In 2020, the company launched Antarctique, a sport-chic collection with the first in-house Czapek movement. Today, Czapek’s haute horlogerie timepieces are known for their distinctive designs, high-quality craftsmanship and limited production. With headquarters in Geneva and its atelier in La-Chaux-de-Fonds, Czapek thoroughly defends the concept of ‘établissage’ in a modern way.

#wecollectrarepeople