Revived Urban Jürgensen pushes to regain place at horology high table

Watch collectors did not bat an eyelid when it was announced four years ago that historic dial name Urban Jürgensen had been bought by investors and primed for revival. The brand was tired, but to aficionados it was a sleeping beauty.

What raised eyebrows, by contrast, was that its new American owners had recruited one of the elite names in contemporary independent watchmaking to be its co-chief executive.

Kari Voutilainen, the Finnish winner of numerous awards for his highly collectible Voutilainen watches, smiles at the suggestion he is not known as a man looking for work. “Of course, I’m busy,” the 63-year-old says unassumingly, keen not to betray his trademark modesty. “But to do this sort of thing is different, stimulating, a new challenge.”

The challenge, as Voutilainen describes it, is to restore Urban Jürgensen’s once lofty reputation and to make it “a reference point” in fine watchmaking again. Founded in Denmark in 1773, at one time the company provided watches to Danish royalty, and into the 2000s its abstruse watches were still coveted by collectors.

But over the past quarter of a century, Urban Jürgensen has lost its place at horology’s high table, usurped by a new generation of high-end independent watchmakers, Voutilainen among them. Until now, perhaps.

The company was thrown a lifeline in 2021 by a small group of investors led by the American Rosenfield family, whose patriarch Andrew Rosenfield is president of Guggenheim Partners, an investment company with $345bn of assets under management. Rosenfield bought his first Urban Jürgensen in the 1990s and is a known watch collector.

His son Alex, a lawyer as well as a media and fashion brand strategist who up until recently was also a director at Guggenheim Partners, is Voutilainen’s co-chief executive. Rosenfield Jr oversaw Urban Jürgensen’s critically successful rebrand in collaboration with the creative agencies Winkreative in London and Chandelier Creative in New York, as well as the brand’s launch campaign, shot by photographer Ellen von Unwerth.

Voutilainen’s relationship with Urban Jürgensen began in the 1990s when he was invited by its then owner, the watchmaker Peter Baumberger, to work with him. In 2005, he would finish an Urban Jürgensen oval-shaped pocket watch begun by the revered British watchmaker Derek Pratt, who died in 2009.

We need to find watchmakers to train them. Our watches aren’t easy to make

The watch, which featured an obscure one-minute flying tourbillon with an integrated remontoire constant-force mechanism, sold at auction last year for SFr3.69mn ($4.5mn). For Voutilainen, it began a love affair. “I liked the style — so discreet and elegant,” he says.

Last month, after more than three years in development, Voutilainen’s first Urban Jürgensen collection was released at a star-studded event in Alex Rosenfield’s home city of Los Angeles. Prices before taxes range from SFr105,000 for the UJ-2 to SFr368,000 for the 250th anniversary UJ-1, a 75-piece limited-edition based on Pratt’s pocket watch. A third piece, the UJ-3 perpetual calendar, was conceived in collaboration with Andreas Strehler, another pioneer of modern Swiss watchmaking, and features a moon phase accurate to 14,000 years.

The UJ-3 perpetual calendar

The UJ-2 entry-level model

Voutilainen, who has a stake in Urban Jürgensen, expects to deliver around 70 watches this year, with expectations set much higher. He says the goal is 1,200 watches a year within five years and to be on a similar footing to lodestars of contemporary independent watchmaking, such as FP Journe and MB&F.

That could be a tall order, even allowing for the $25mn the Rosenfields have said they have invested in Urban Jürgensen’s renaissance. Voutilainen has brought over his own high-efficiency escapement (a device that regulates the release of a mechanical watch’s energy) to the brand, which collectors will appreciate but will also make his new watches more difficult to produce.

“It’s not taught in watchmaking school,” he says of his device, which appears in UJ-2 and UJ-3. “So there’s no theoretical information. What we need is watchmakers, and then to find watchmakers to train them. Our watches aren’t easy to make.”

Voutilainen says that at present, the company employs around 20 people at its workshops in the Swiss city of Biel/Bienne, where its neighbours include Rolex and Omega. Three-quarters of those people work directly on the watches, either as watchmakers or on decorations.

The Rosenfields’ sizeable investment could be seen as a risk given the travails of an industry that has seen its exports dip over the past year amid a downturn in global luxury spending. But Voutilainen has no doubts. “The economic situation [facing the industry] is hitting lower price points,” he says, alluding to shrinking exports of Swiss watches priced at a few thousand francs and less. “There are always customers willing to buy at this level.”

Statistics appear to back up his claim. According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, exports of more expensive watches have proved resilient, so that while volumes of all Swiss watches have almost halved over the past decade, revenues have climbed.

Voutilainen expects some of his customers to buy into his new charge. “Most collectors start with Rolex and Patek, and then they buy independents, like FP Journe,” he says. “And these collectors will come to us, too. They like classical stuff and they don’t have a problem with budget.”

For now, Urban Jürgensen watches will only be sold directly to consumers. “I think it would be fantastic to have a few showrooms in the US, but when, that’s another story,” says Voutilainen. “In the 19th century, Jürgensen watches were a reference in the watch world. That’s what I’m hoping for.”