Audemars Piguet Musee Atelier

Scanning this interior space from background to foreground, listeners will construct a curved glass-walled pavilion set within a winter landscape, with snow-covered ground and bare trees visible through transparent walls that wrap around the exhibition area in a gentle arc. The ceiling overhead features a distinctive radial pattern of fine parallel lines emanating outward from a central point, creating a texture like delicate pleated fabric or the ribs of a luminous umbrella, glowing with soft warm light the temperature of afternoon sunlight filtered through honey. Small cylindrical pendant lights in brass finish, warm as polished autumn leaves, descend at intervals from this radiant canopy. Moving to the center foreground, two people stand together examining a sculptural brass instrument that rises to approximately chest height on slender tapering legs. This central object features a large hemispherical bowl with a surface smooth and lustrous as liquid gold, from which rises an open framework of intersecting rings and arcs cradling a smaller golden sphere at its heart, reminiscent of an astronomical armillary or mechanical orrery. The man on the left has dark curly hair and wears black clothing, his posture leaning forward with focused attention as his hand reaches toward the mechanism. Beside him, a woman with straight dark hair and an expression of delighted discovery wears similarly dark attire, her body angled toward the golden apparatus in engaged observation. The floor beneath their feet reflects the golden instruments and overhead lights like still water, cool and smooth as polished stone. Along the curved perimeter, additional golden sculptural objects on slim pedestals create a rhythmic procession, their ring-and-sphere forms glinting with warm metallic light against the cooler blue-white winter atmosphere visible beyond the glass.

At Audemars Piguet visitors are immersed in the cultural universe of the Swiss watch manufacture, Haute Horlogerie. The structurally very sophisticated glass spiral by BIG Architects extends the historic house where Audemars Piguet was founded in 1875. The museum's scenography offers visitors a paced composition with crescendos, climaxes and contemplative moments. Sculptures, automata and kinetic installations rhythm the exhibition, which is visually connected to the surrounding landscape. Time becomes tangible in space.