PHOTOGRAPHS BY ÉRIVER HIJANO SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019 AFAR 57
connect workshop
KEEPING TIME
In northern Switzerland, travelers can learn the
secrets to what makes great watches tick.
by Victoria GomelskyM
OST TRAVELERS TO the Swiss
city of Schaffhausen go to
explore the Old Town—a bastion
of baroque, rococo, and late
Gothic architecture on the Rhine River—or
to see Rhine Falls, Europe’s largest waterfall,
which is just a few miles south of town.
Watch lovers, however, may recognize
the city of 36,000—a 40-minute train ride
north of Zurich—as the home of the 151-year-
old International Watch Company, or IWC.
One of Switzerland’s venerable horological
brands, IWC was founded in 1868 by Floren-
tine Ariosto Jones, an American watchmaker
eager to manufacture components for pocket
watches using Swiss technology and the river’s
hydropower. The company still maintains its
headquarters in the riverside building Jones
built years after arriving in Schaffhausen.
Located a short walk from the Old Town,
the four-story HQ also houses the IWC
Museum, where a display of the company’s
timepieces—beloved by watch connoisseurs
for their elegant, minimalist aesthetic—offers
an intriguing lens on Switzerland’s role in
20th-century history: Oversize wristwatches
designed for pilots share space with a replica
of a pocket watch gifted to Winston Churchill,
along with a letter he wrote in 1945, thanking
IWC for “the very fine gold watch which you
have so kindly given me for my 70th birthday.”
Travelers can book a full-day tour of the
watchmaking operation, which begins at the
museum before moving on to the main event: a
visit to the $43 million manufacturing center,