Andreas Strehler, Watchmaker and Owner of UhrTeil AG
Tradition means doing things the way they have always been done. It also has the connotation of dismissing all things new. Innovation, by contrast, stands for doing things differently from how they have been done in the past, i.e. for breaking with tradition. In his December 3, 2018, lecture at the Horological Society of New York, Andreas Strehler will argue that in watchmaking, true innovation is no contradiction to tradition but only possible based on tradition.
About Andreas Strehler
After watchmaking school in Solothurn, Switzerland, Andreas Strehler started his career at the legendary company Renaud et Papi which is today Audemars Piquet (Renaud et Papi) SA and was then a small start-up. He was the first watchmaker there who was not one of the directors. He became head of the prototype department at a time when his contemporaries were Robert Greubel, Stephen Forsey, Bart and Tim Grönefeld and later Peter Speake-Marin.
Andreas Strehler then went back to his native Winterthur and started working on his own, initially in his father's garage. Today, Andreas Strehler is a Prix Gaïa laureate and a member of the Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants (AHCI). He has been an independent watchmaker for more than 20 years. His atelier is based in Sirnach, the German speaking part of Switzerland. Andreas Strehler designs, constructs and manufactures his movements in his own workshop with the help of a small and dedicated workforce. He designs, constructs, hand-finishes, assembles and regulates all of the 10 watches personally which are built every year under his name. Andreas also develops and constructs many of the tools and machines he uses. Through UhrTeil AG, his movement production business, he develops, designs and manufactures movements for other brands.