| NOMOS Glashütte | |
| Foundation: | 1990 |
| Founder: | Roland Schwertner |
| Location City: | Glashütte |
| Location Country: | Germany |
| Industry: | Watchmaking |
| Products: | Watches |
| Num Employees: | 300 (2016) |
| Key People: | Uwe Ahrendt (CEO) |
NOMOS Glashütte is a German watchmaking company based in Glashütte, Saxony, specializing in artisan manual-winding and automatic mechanical watches. It was founded by Roland Schwertner in January 1990, two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The first collection of designs was drawn up by Susanne Günther, who took influence from the Bauhaus purist style. NOMOS designs are known for their clean and modernist aesthetic. NOMOS Glashütte is a member of the Deutscher Werkbund—a predecessor of the Bauhaus movement. The Werkbund Association aims to represent the interests of companies that combine both handcrafts with industrial production and design with functionality.[1]
"Nomos" (νόμος) means law or rule in Greek. In 1906, a company called "Nomos-Uhr-Gesellschaft, Guido Müller & Co." started importing Swiss watches and distributing them with the more prestigious addition, “Glashütte/Sachsen”. For a watch company to include “Glashütte” in their name, at least 50% of the caliber must be manufactured in Glashütte; this is up to 95% for NOMOS Glashütte, but was not the case for the Nomos-Uhr-Gesellschaft. The renowned company A. Lange & Söhne took them to court and in 1910 the Nomos-Uhr-Gesellschaft ceased business operations. The Nomos-Uhr-Gesellschaft from the early 1900s and today's NOMOS Glashütte have nothing more than the name Nomos in common.[2]
In 1990, Roland Schwertner, an IT expert and photographer from Düsseldorf, registered the trademark NOMOS Glashütte/SA. The first collection of NOMOS watches came out shortly thereafter in 1992. NOMOS Glashütte currently has three sites in Glashütte, a place renowned for its tradition of watchmaking. The administration department can be found in the former Glashütte station building, while most of the watchmakers are located on Am Erbenhang street. Since 2017, a further manufacturing facility can be found in the Schlottwitz district. Annual production is approximately 20,000 pieces.[3] In its early years, the company focused on manufacturing mechanical watches with hand-wound movements.[4] Until 2005, the basis for these movements was the Swiss-made ETA SA/Peseux 7001. Since April 2005, NOMOS Glashütte has only used in-house movements. Beginning with α (Alpha), a manual winding caliber, the range has since been expanded to include a range of other manual winding movements with additional functions. The first automatic NOMOS watch, the Tangomat, was first introduced in the summer of 2005.
In 2014, the company unveiled its own in-house escapement, known as the NOMOS swing system, which made it no longer reliant on Swiss manufacturers.[5] This new component was gradually introduced into NOMOS’ caliber range. Since 2016, the company has concentrated on upgrading its caliber range with the NOMOS swing system; once upgraded, the calibers receive a name beginning with "DUW". This acronym stands for "Deutsche Uhrenwerke" and is intended to highlight the company's in-house caliber production.[6]
The calibers in the company's neomatik (“new automatic”) series are considerably thin.[7] NOMOS Glashütte introduced DUW 3001, its tenth in-house caliber, in 2015.[8] At only 3.2 mm in height, this caliber is exclusive to the neomatik series, launched at BaselWorld 2016. The latest movement, DUW 6101, or “neomatik date,” was introduced in 2018. In this year the company also introduced the models Autobahn and Tangente Update, which debuted the neomatik date caliber. At BaselWorld 2019, the company introduced three new collections: the duo series, three new sports watches (two versions of Tangente Sport and one of Club Sport), and three automatic Club Campus models.
The brand started production in 1992 with four basic models: Tangente, Orion, Ludwig, and Tetra. NOMOS Glashütte has since gradually expanded its range of watches to include new models and sizes, such as Club and Metro. In 2013 the company introduced two gold models to its collection, Lambda and Lux.[9] There are currently thirteen NOMOS watch models, which come in a number of variations. These are:
NOMOS Glashütte owns multiple patents for their calibers, such as for the in-house date mechanism, power reserve display and for the proprietary escapement, the NOMOS swing system.[17] NOMOS Glashütte currently produces eleven in-house calibers with various complications. These are:
The NOMOS Glashütte movements have a Glashütte three-quarter plate, are rhodium-plated and refined with Glashütte ribbing and NOMOS perlage. Further special features include: stop-seconds mechanism, fine adjustment in six positions, Glashütte-style NOMOS stopwork, tempered blue screws, sunburst finish on the ratchet and crown wheel. Additional features of the movements DUW 1001 and 2002: swan neck fine adjustment, hand-engraved balance cock, screwed gold chatons, 84-hour power reserve, twin mainspring barrel, screw balance.
NOMOS watches have won more than 150 design awards to date (as of December 2018), including the iF Design Award, the Good Design Award, the red dot Design Award, and the German Design Award.[19] In 2018, NOMOS Glashütte became the first non-Swiss brand after A. Lange & Söhne to win the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG), the Oscars of the watchmaking world, with the Tangente Update model[20] - which has also been awarded the European Product Design Award (EPDA).[21]