Inside MB&F's watchmaking "M.A.D. House"
A few minutes from the center of Geneva, Switzerland, stands a 20th century stone house that looks like something out of a fairy tale, complete with wooden shutters and multiple spires.
Once the home of Swiss industrialists, today it's a dream factory for eccentric entrepreneur Maximilian Büsser.
With a team of designers and watchmakers, MB&F, or Maximilian Büsser and Friends, creates some of the most unusual timepieces in the industry.
"What we create has to be reliable for decades, hundreds of years… there is a responsibility," Büsser told correspondent Jon Wertheim.
"But at the same time, as a creator, [you] don't take yourself too seriously."
One of MB&F's most bizarre creations is the HM10 Bulldog, a watch with a bulbous glass case and four "legs." The "jaws" of the HM10 will open when the watch needs to be mechanically wound.
"Max Büsser is like a mad scientist who has diverted his creativity to watchmaking," Wertheim told 60 Minutes Overtime.
"[And] if I told you there's a likably eccentric Swiss engineer who makes crazy watches you won't find anywhere else… the M.A.D. House is exactly what you're picturing."
"The M.A.D. House," the acronym stands for Mechanical Art Device, is where MB&F's signature watches are made. It was originally built in 1907 for a wealthy Swiss family.
Now, it houses the creative and highly-skilled minds working to make Büsser's unconventional designs a reality.
Büsser, standing behind an employee who was panning through a detailed 3D model of MB&F's HM11 Architect, said the design stage alone can take years.
"[Development project leader] Thomas [Lorenzato] here has worked over 3,000 hours, over four years, to develop this incredible machine," Büsser told Wertheim.
"But then you also see tools and techniques that the Swiss have been using for centuries," Wertheim told Overtime.
In what looks more like a dining room than a workshop, watchmakers hunch over their workbenches, assembling the near-microscopic components that make up a watch.
Some of them are so small, they're almost imperceptible to the naked eye: springs can be the width of a human hair and there are screws the size of poppy seeds.
Many of the artisans wear a loupe, or high-magnification monocle, that allows them to maneuver and install the tiny parts.
Watchmaker Clément Erard demonstrated a critical moment in the watchmaking process for 60 Minutes.
Erard wound an assembled timepiece to see if its balance wheel, the "beating heart" of a watch, would come to life.
Wertheim marveled at the oscillating motion.
"And that's like a birth… after 18 months of work," Büsser told Wertheim. "It's always a great moment."
Büsser calls himself a balance wheel "fetishist," featuring them prominently in many of his designs. In traditional wrist watches, the balance wheel is hidden.
Büsser showed Wertheim a watch called the Legacy Machine No. 1, released in 2011, which features a "flying" balance wheel that spins just underneath its glass case.
Büsser also showed Wertheim the finished product of the 3D design they had seen earlier: the HM11 Architect.
"This comes from my much more recent passion… post-modernist architecture of the '60s. And we have a house," he said, pulling out the device.
The watch resembles a house, with four "rooms," or watch faces, pointing outward. One face tells the hours and minutes, and another is a mechanical thermometer.
There is also a power-reserve indicator that tells the owner when the watch needs to be wound. By rotating the entire watch on its wristband, the piece can be powered up.
Wertheim wondered how long it took Büsser to go from concept to creation.
"Five years. The movement is incredibly complex. The case is insane. There are 92 components just for the case," Büsser explained.
"The watches are not cheap. Some of these go for hundreds of thousands of dollars," Wertheim told Overtime.
"Max really resists and resents the idea that people are buying this as a commodity that they can resell at a profit… he wants you to connect with it like you would a piece of art on the wall."
"It's the worst reason to buy a beautiful piece of watchmaking. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm very happy if our customers can not lose money, or even make money reselling one of our watches… but [that] shouldn't be the reason," Büsser told Wertheim.
"The reason [should be] those dozens of incredible human beings who've worked on that incredible piece of watchmaking."
The video above was produced by Will Croxton. It was edited by Nelson Ryland.
