Good Design and the Perception of Time

“ I will request that you don’t write this, but I do not like watches! For me, watches are the antithesis of liberty. I am an artist, a painter, I hate having to adhere to the constraints of time. It irritates me.” - Gerald Genta, 1990.

This is a long read on horology rather than collecting. Consider yourself warned.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the preceding quote. It would not be difficult to argue that, historically speaking, clocks have been tools of oppression.  David Rooney, in his highly recommended book “About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks” does an admirable job of reminding us of the various ways in which clocks have been used as object of imperialism, war and oppression. None of this will come as a surprise to anyone who has sat in an office building, factory or school staring at a clock.

Still, this was not exactly what Gerald Genta, perhaps the most famous watch designer of the modern era, had in mind when he admitted that found time pieces to be oppressive. He would go on in the same interview to talk about how much he loved designing watches. Yet the actual experience of wearing them seems to have interfered with his artistic processes. One cannot add any hours to the day by leaving your watch at home, but sometimes it feels that way.

This is the subject that I want to explore today.  How does the design of a watch impact the psychology of our perception of time? More specifically, how does the design of a dial, and the way that the time is presented, both reflect and reinforce our experience of time?

Let’s begin with some easy examples drawn from the lived experience of many (or even most) individuals during the second half of the 20th century.  Upon getting a job you would likely buy a simple three hand watch. Such a device was critical for knowing when you needed to be at work and when you must leave. It can tell you when to start a specific task, and when to put it down. 

The critical thing about this sort of watch, and what Genta disliked, is that all of these time telling tasks happen in relation to an externally decided reference time, one controlled by your employer or community. Each and every one of these mid-twentieth designs had one thing in common.  Regardless of the movement inside, when you looked at the watch face they reminded you that your time was not your own. 

If you worked hard and did well in the 20th century workforce you might end up becoming a manger.  Typically such individuals would commemorate their promotion with a new watch. And in showing off their status they might invest in either precious metal or add a “complication.”  The most important complication throughout this period was the chronograph. I have to admit that it is my favorite. I love it because it frees you from the necessity of having an external reference time when taking measurements. Time becomes abstract and fungible, which more accurately reflects its true nature. Now you can make precise measurements along a timeline that you define, and in a scale that is useful to you.

This is also incredibly useful if you think in terms of rates of speed or rates of production, rather than simply how many hours are left in the day.  And this is precisely what the managerial class of the 20th century did. It was (and it largely remains) their reason for existence. The stunning growth in economic efficiency that was seen throughout the post-war era was measured and recorded with an army of chronographs and, better yet, stopwatches. 

This was so important to the global economy that some companies came to specialize in the production of just these sorts of pieces. Hanhart was probably always better known for their stopwatches than their wrist watches. And one look at the Breitling Navitimer tells you that during the golden age of aviation pilots were experiencing time largely as the burn rate of their fuel. That makes a lot of sense if your job is keeping a plane in the air. 

Navigators, however, did need a reference time. Leaving and arriving on time was critical. And measuring the critical legs of a journey often privileged minutes over hours.  Hence it is no surprise that the German Airforce decided that the Type B flieger dial, with its exaggerated minute track and diminished (or missing) hours was the most efficient tool for the job. This is a dial that forces you to literally count the minutes. I like the Type B, but they also seem to slow my perception of time. This comes down to the visual emphasis that is placed on what happens within the hour, rather than the movement from one hour to the next.

If you were lucky enough to be an actual capitalist, not to manage a factory but to own it, even greater complications were a must in advertising your social status. These typically came in the form of precious metal dress and calendar watches, with the perpetual calendar being the ultimate prize. Recent technical innovations like “hacking seconds” were not necessary. Instead, one’s attention was directed to the day and the month.  Our point of reference is no longer the clock on the front of the factory, but its progress throughout the financial year.  This is the ultimately expression of luxury, and the one that Genta himself seemed to yearn for. It is the ability to live a life where time is measured in days and Months, not hours and minutes.

In a world where everyone tells the time by looking at their cell phones, wrist watches no longer play the vital economic and social roles that they once did.  They have become objects of individual fascination that exist somewhere between the realm of jewelry and talismen. Yet they never stopped telling the time, and we have never stopped experiencing its passage. With the variety and choice that we as modern consumers have, can we now make some choices for ourselves as to how we experience its flow? 

 My cell phone seems to have its own effect on my experience of time, and it is not entirely positive.  Apps and advertisements seem have colonized the fourth dimension and its difficult to know what time it is without being reminded of my social obligations as a consumer, rather than simply as an employee. Time itself has become a sponsored product. I don’t think we can underestimate how fundamental a shift this is in our society’s relationship to time and its understanding of the nature of life.  It is one of the reasons why I went back to mechanical watches. They never remind me of emails that aren’t that important, or prompt me to check notifications which are mostly advertisements. They provide me with a calmer, and less cluttered, experience of my day.

Does the face of the watch matter for how one perceives the flow of time?  I think that is an interesting thought experiment for students of horology to carry out on their own. It may come down to how you wear and check your own watches. I personally do seem to notice a difference.  That Panerai, or any watch lacking a minute track, seems well suited for the weekend but also conveys something of that relaxed feeling throughout the week as well.  Add an exaggerated minute track or a chronograph function and I again find myself hanging on each minute. Sometimes I prefer one, and sometimes the other. 

Design, and the way that our watches present the time, absolutely matters.  Whether they end up feeling like objects of oppression in the current era may be largely up to us.