The Nature of Time at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum

Grand Seiko returns to Milan Design Week, focusing on The Nature of Time. The exhibition, from 9 to 14 April at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Via Manzoni 12, focuses on the Spring Drive watch, which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary. A watch with an innovative mechanism and smooth, jerky movement of its seconds hand, Grand Seiko has never altered its essential and minimal aesthetics since its birth in 1960. Being one with time, the environment and the search for an expressive modality to interpret the essence of time, are the supporting pillars of the work of Grand Seiko, and the word 'nature', in its double meaning of 'essence' and 'environment', is reflected both on the production of watches and on the concept of the whole exhibition. Together with Toshiki Kiriyama of Trunk ltd, producer of the exhibition for the second consecutive year, there are the contemporary design studio "we +" and Shingo Abe, computer graphic director. To tell the topic as a tactile experience, the team has paraphrased 'Perception of Time', with the works 'FLUX' by we + and 'movement' by Shingo Abe. 'Flux' is an installation that portrays the continuous and gradual change of time, and Spring Drive is represented as a microcosm, through a glass object the size of a hand. 'Movement' by Shingo Abe, represents a short journey to a distant place, the fluid movement of the Spring Drive watch, with a visual experience that harks back to the figurative language of computer graphics. Spring Drive is an exclusive Seiko technology that combines the power of the power spring with the high precision of quartz crystals, making it possible to reach the finish line of the second day. Introduced in 1999 as a revolutionary mechanism, it is characterized by maximum energy efficiency and a sliding movement of the second hand.