About NOMOS Glashuette: the fine art of Saxony watchmaking and the Bauhaus Design

Nomos existed from 1906 to 1911 under a company called Nomos-Uhr-Gesellschaft Guido Müller and Co. It was finally liquidated because its watches then were 100 percent Swiss in origin.

Fast forward to the 1990s, when Germany was changing and with the fall of Berlin Wall, a young man named Roland Schwertner recognized the potential in classical German watchmaking in the little town of Glashütte. He acquired the rights to the Nomos name, and since then everything of Nomos changed for the better except its name.

Schwertner and his friend, Susanne Günther, a talented designer, spent the initial months, looking for a design that is suitable for the small collection of Nomos. They decided that the Nomos collection should be of high quality yet affordable. After much sought-after, they settled upon the Bauhaus principle, emphasizing on ‘form following function to accomplish a timeless yet contemporary design’ for all Nomos watches.

Schwertner believed in the high quality of Glashütte watchmaker’s skills, and with the new law stating that at least 50 percent of the value of the movement must be produced in Glashütte in order to put ‘Glashütte’ on the dial, he stated employing men and women from the region.

With only two watchmakers in 1990, one of whom is Reiner Langeleist, the goal of creating a Glashütte work of art from the Swiss made, manually wound Peseux 7001 was realized.


Figure 1: Reiner Langeleist – the man behind the Perlage in NOMOS movements

Over the next few years, this movement has evolved much to meet the standards of Schwertner.

The following changes to the movement are as follows: - Movements were given its own set of names depending on the functions included:

- Manually wound Peseux have sandblasted surfaces and the traditional Glashütte blued screws;
- The crown and ratchet wheels have characteristic sunburst decoration;
- All models have a three-quarter plate seen through their sapphire crystal caseback;
- Addition of date ring, power reserve and a Glashütte-style click;
- Addition of perlage (circular graining) to some of the parts, a tradition NOT known to the Glashütte watchmakers but was successfully achieved by Langeleist.

A witty move by Schwertner to name each of the four watches in his collection proved to be instant success, as the Tangente was quickly established as the collection’s leading model, becoming the iconic face for Nomos. Such a phenomenal positive manner the Tangente has received, that it won a number of awards, including several top ten finishes at the prestigious Watch of the Year Award by the German watch magazine ArmbandUhren.

Seventeen years has passed now, indeed, Nomos has grown out from her humble beginnings, while not losing focus to produce the best watches possible while keeping them affordable. The new automatic movements, Epsilon (without date) and Zeta (with date), were designed, developed and manufactured entirely inhouse at Nomos, has raised her status to that of a true manufacture. These movements can be found in the Tangomat series.

Figure 2: First in-house automatic mechanism (Epsilon/Zeta)

Figure 3: Details of Zeta movement

In addition, Schwertner strived to upkeep the tradition set out by F.A. Lange to maintain a strong community within the town. To achieve so, he gives exceptional working conditions to all of his employees, donates his watches to graduating classes of Makarenko, the local watchmaking school and even raised more than one million euros for Glashütte residents during the great flood of 2002!

Such is fine young man who brought Nomos back to life. However, we cannot forget a few other important people within Nomos that are just as vital to the development of this wonderful company.

1) Thierry Albert – a young, exceptional watchmaker, who developed both the date indication and the power reserve to fit within the small height of the watch.


Figure 4: Thierry Albert – cleverly incorporate power reserve mechanism whilst keeping the watch thin

2) Uwe Ahrendt – now managing director of the Nomos factories, previously employed at A. Lange & Söhne, brought great technological developments for Nomos, enabling Nomos to produce 12,000 watches every year. This figure is set to increase to 20,000 by the year 2010.


Figure 5: Uwe Ahrendt – the key personnel to bring Nomos further

3) Mirko Heyne – now 31 years old, famously known as the founder of a small company Lang and Heyne but went on separate ways, made Nomos first in-house automatic movement a dream come true. He works closely with Albert.


Figure 6: Mirko Heyne – Made epsilon/zeta in-house NOMOS movement

Over the next few but short years, Schwertner has many plans for Nomos. First, the majority of Nomos’ watchmakers now work in a building called Chronometrie which is located high up in the hills surrounding Glashütte, with less dust, dirt and noise.


Figure 7: Chronometrie – the new site for Nomos watchmakers to assemble all watches

Next, an old train station was bought over and this will become Nomos’ corporate headquarters.


Figure 8: Train station turned Nomos HQ in 2005

Following which, a small flagship store located at number 12 Main Street was rented, the very same building where F.A. Lange began his Glashütte’s watchmaking, is used for its PR efforts.


Figure 9: Nomos flagship store- a very small shop that sells Nomos watches in Glashutte.

Lastly, the latest acquired old Urania observatory will turn into Nomos new technology center where research and development is the main activity. With such excellent organization and planning, Schwertner will bring Nomos to a brand new heights that no one has ever imagined. It will be very exciting for the world to watch how Nomos will transform herself and made known to the world, the classical and forgotten art of German Glashütte watchmaking.


Figures 10,11: How it is being done in Nomos, Glashütte