About

Ludwig Oechslin is behind all ochs und junior’s watches and is responsible for all technical innovations and functional designs. He started ochs und junior with the goal of creating rigorously simple yet useful mechanical watches. For over 20 years he created award-winning watches for Ulysse Nardin including the Freak, Moonstruck, Trilogy of Time, Perpetual GMT, and Sonata. From 2001 until February 2014, Oechslin curated and managed the most significant museum dedicated to the history of watch and clock making, the Musée International d’Horlogerie (MIH) in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. He holds a diploma as a Watchmaker(-Rhabilleur) and as a Federally Certified Master Watchmaker. In his academic career he graduated in Archaeology, Ancient History and Greek (University of Basel), completed a doctorate in Philosophy, History of Research and Scholarship (Theoretical Physics) and Astronomy (University of Berne) as well as a habilitation in Pre-Industrial Technical Archaeology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ).
He uses his extensive learning and experience to create innovative wristwatches that excel in one area for which, to date, Swiss watchmaking is not known: simplification. An intense construction and design process leads to the creation of simpler solutions than have previously been achieved in wristwatches. Complications in mechanical wristwatches such as calendars conventionally incorporate levers and springs. Oechslin’s studies of astronomical devices, his restoration and documentation of the Farnese astronomical clock (1725) in the Vatican between 1978
and 1982, and the construction of the famous Türler clock (now in the MIH), taught him that gears are a better solution for a wristwatch; he now bases his designs on this insight. His novel combinations of cogwheels and epicyclic (planetary) gearing are so straightforward that they can be manufactured by any competent engineering workshop, and offer excellent operational
reliability.