Brand museum

Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet

Le Brassus, Switzerland

Grand complications from the Vallée de Joux and working watchmaking ateliers in a spiral glass pavilion.

The pavilion, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, opened in 2020 next to the founders' original house in Le Brassus.

Type: Brand museum
Location: Le Brassus, Switzerland
Founded: 2020
Specialities: Complications · Vallée de Joux
Official website: www.audemarspiguet.com/com/en/about/musee-atelier.html (opens another website in a new tab)
Map: OpenStreetMap (opens another website in a new tab)

Opening hours, admission and accessibility change; please check the official website before visiting.

Why it matters for horology

Audemars Piguet was founded in 1875 in Le Brassus, in the Vallée de Joux, by Jules Louis Audemars and Edward Auguste Piguet, and is one of the few Swiss watch companies still controlled by its founding families. The valley was the Swiss centre for complicated movements — repeaters, perpetual calendars and chronographs — made by farmer-watchmakers through long winters, and the museum shows that tradition alongside the company's own history. The spiral glass pavilion by Bjarke Ingels Group opened in 2020 beside the founders' original workshop building, with its curved glass walls carrying the roof.

Specialities

Complications
Vallée de Joux

What to look for

Grand complications: Pocket watches combining minute repeaters, perpetual calendars and chronographs from the Vallée de Joux, among them Audemars Piguet's 'Universelle' of 1899, one of the most complicated watches of its time.
The Royal Oak: Gérald Genta's steel sports watch of 1972 and its successors; see the Atlas guide to vintage classics.
Working ateliers: Watchmakers assembling grand complications and decorating movements, visible from the exhibition.

Regional tradition

Swiss horologyFrom Geneva's cabinotiers and the farm workshops of the Jura to the modern manufactures, Switzerland became the world's leading producer of watches.

Makers from Switzerland in the Atlas

From the catalogue: Swiss horology

6,550 records →

These records come from other collections and dealers, not from Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet; they show the kind of objects this institution's field covers.