News To mark the 400th anniversary of North America’s largest French-speaking city the canton of Jura is offering a giant clock to the municipality of Quebec.
Quebec, North America's largest French-speaking city, this year celebrates its 400th anniversary. This event is important for French-speaking countries and particularly for the Republic and canton of Jura, which feels particularly close to Quebec on account of its history.
To celebrate this anniversary in fitting style, the Republic and canton of Jura wished to offer Quebec a gift symbolising their friendship, an exclusive object representative of its time and of the culture, know-how and activity of the canton of Jura.
The Department of Training, Culture and Sport asked the company Horométrie SA in Les Breuleux, which distributes Richard Mille watches – in its view the ideal candidate with respect to the aforementioned criteria – to reflect on the design of a unique timepiece. Thus the project named "the secret of Bonheure" took shape, coordinated by Stéphane Berdat, delegate for cooperation of the Republic and canton of Jura.
The firm Richard Mille wished to create an exceptional timepiece to serve as a worthy ambassador for the region. And so the idea came about for a mechanical clock measuring around 2.5 metres wide by 3.5 metres tall, earmarked for installation in the Bibliothèque Gabrielle Roy, Quebec’s largest library located in its second city centre, an extremely dynamic district.
The clock was officially presented during the Sommet de la francophonie held in Quebec on 18 and 19 October this year and attended by the president of the Jura government Elisabeth Baume-Schneider. Meanwhile the clock itself, extremely complex to produce like all Richard Mille timepieces, will take its place in the new entrance hall of the Gabrielle Roy library in around two years’ time.
This two sided clock naturally contains all the genes of its manufacturer. Like Richard Mille watches, it features the very best of technology and is strong both architecturally and aesthetically. Geared to performance, it offers two displays: an interior display in the entrance hall (hours, minutes, seconds offset at 3 o’clock and perpetual calendar) and an exterior display in the place Jacques Cartier (hours and minutes only). Transparency is the strong suit of the mechanism, which will be visible from the front, rear and side.
The special technical features of this project are: a constant-force escapement, designed to transmit constant power to the regulating organ regardless of the position of the hands; a constant force device, designed to cancel out effects engendered by winding; a perpetual calendar mechanism (date, day, month, year and leap year); a second time zone indicating the time in the Jura canton; an equation of time indicating the difference between mean time and solar time.
November 11, 2008
