page_title: Rolf W. Schnyder
section_title: A new era dawns
hierarchical_section_title: Rolf W. Schnyder / Biography / A new era dawns
caption_attribution_description: English: Rolf Schnyder
context_page_description: Rolf W. Schnyder was a Swiss businessman known for his role as the owner and CEO of watchmaker Ulysse Nardin.
context_section_description: In 1983, at 48 years of age, Schnyder returned to St. Moritz, Switzerland to ski and race his beloved skeleton bobsleds, activities that he continues to enjoy today. (He still occasionally wins a race on the Cresta Run, as he did in February 2006.)
  “I was on holiday skiing when I read in the papers that Ulysse Nardin had filed for Chapter 11 (deferment of payment) to protect itself from creditors. This was during the Quartz Crisis and many famous companies in Switzerland were folding. Ulysse Nardin had many debts without any real way of paying them off,” says Schnyder. He, like many watch enthusiasts, knew Ulysse Nardin's name well. “I knew of the brand because of the many medals for accuracy and chronometric competitions that it had won. I was immediately interested in purchasing Ulysse Nardin. It was the opportunity to be involved in one of the truly great names in horology.”
  However, when Schnyder visited the manufacture, he discovered nothing more than a beautiful carcass housed in the original factory building that was constructed in 1864. There was only one full-time watchmaker named Leopold Berthoud who occupied himself by creating Ulysse Nardin's marine chronometers and deck watches for collectors looking to own an anachronistic but sublimely made piece of naval history. Another person that Schnyder found at the manufacture was Jean-Jacques Haldimann. “It was essentially with these one-and-a-half employees (as Haldimann was not actually on company payroll at that time) that I started at Ulysse Nardin. I realized that if I were to undertake this resurrection, I would have to breathe life back into this carcass based on the strength of our products,” says Schnyder.
  His plan for Ulysse Nardin's rebirth was to elevate it to the highest position in watchmaking. “To do this, I knew I had to make a watch that had never been made before,” he explains. Fortunately for Schnyder, the ever-helpful Haldimann was deeply embedded in the Swiss watch industry. He told Schnyder that an independent watchmaker named Jörg Spoering had created a new tourbillon. Rolf was keen to see if Spoering had other ideas for high complications. As soon as he entered Spoering's atelier in Lucerne, a bizarre clock caught his eye. Says Schnyder: “I had only a vague recollection of seeing something like it before, so I asked: ‘Is this what they call an astrolabium?' Spoering said it was and explained that the clock was made by someone named Ludwig Oechslin. He sighed and added: ‘He is supposed to be my apprentice but he is never here.'”
  Three weeks later Spoering arranged for Schnyder to meet Oechslin. “I pointed to the Astrolabium clock and asked: ‘Can you make it in wristwatch size?' He puzzled for a moment and answered, genuinely confused: ‘I can, but who would want it so small.'” Rolf Schnyder smiled as he replied: “I do.”
  Unveiled in 1985, the Astrolabium Galileo Galilei was a major critical and commercial success. Although the Astrolabium went down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most complex watch made, its significance was far greater than the sum of its parts. The Astrolabium, a machine powered by human kinetic energy that told time through the ancient poetry of celestial positions, was a sign of things to come and marked “the beginning of a beautiful friendship” between the brilliant leader Schnyder and the poet-philosopher Oechslin. Together, what they would accomplish over the next two-and-a-half decades is, in a word, ‘extraordinary'.
  During his years at the helm of Ulysse Nardin, Schnyder has created some of the most original and functionally innovative timepieces in horology. Rather than sticking to ‘tried-and-tested', Ulysse Nardin with the help of Ludwig Oechslin has constantly pushed the boundaries and opened up new worlds of manufacturing techniques and materials ahead of the rest of the watch industry. Ludwig's creative mind worked much faster than the small production team at the disposal of Schnyder. Schnyder followed up his awesome Astrolabium watch with the Planetarium Copernicus, a wristwatch that represents time
caption: Rolf Schnyder in 2004
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