“Craftsmanship,” I am told time and again, “is at the service of creation.” I am in Switzerland, standing in a rustic, brown wood farmhouse. After several days in Geneva at the Watches and Wonders fair, and being inundated by the latest in horology, Cartier has offered a change of pace. A drive up north and east to visit its Maison des Métiers d’Art in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a city in the Jura Mountains in the Neuchâtel canton.
This Maison des Métiers d’Art was opened by the French jewellery and watchmaking brand in 2014, dedicated to the vanishingly rare artistic handcrafts that go into some of its most beautiful and experimental designs. Rather than stretches of factory floors that thrum with machinery, there are artisan workbenches marked by quiet, calm concentration.
The building we are in is an 18th-century farmhouse, built in the Bernese style with large, steeply sloped roofs. It’s a bit of an anachronism in La Chaux-de-Fonds, which is about 70-odd kilometres west of Bern. This old architectural style is underpinned by wood structures, the fruit of logging industries— characteristics that Cartier has maintained even as it renovated the space to create its haven of craft. Inside and out, it represents a fusion of tradition and modernity that underlines the maison’s approach to time-honoured crafts.
Cartier’s Maison des Métiers d’Art works on and produces its artistic craft timepieces, but in so doing also carries out a three-pronged mission. Preserving these practices and skills, innovating and furthering the craft, and transmitting it for present and future generations. The rationale is simple: if one wishes to continue pursuing beauty, one must act to ensure the perpetuity of its know-how.
I see, in the workrooms, the highly specialised tools and materials of the trade. They are divided into three categories: the arts of metal, fire and composition. Benches with gold beads destined for an antique Etruscan granulation technique. Walls of finely powdered glass, which look like those in deliciously ancient speciality craft stores, that will be used for enamelling—cloisonné, champlevé, grisaille, gold paste and plique-à-jour. A wooden crossbow saw, custom-made as it was in the 16th century, powered by a foot pedal and used to cut tiny pieces of wood, straw or rose petals for marquetry dials.
And it’s not just about tradition. The Maison des Métiers d’Art is also the site of experimentation and innovation. Modern technologies like 3D printing helped the development of the house’s remarkable Coussin watch and jewellery designs from 2024, in which diamonds are set on a springy, squishy mesh frame. It yields to soft squeezes and returns to its original shape. Cartier has many ‘cushion’ designs in its history, but only so recently a tactility that’s true to the name.
The search for the new is not restrained, either, by the four walls of this house of craft. In 2015, it introduced the Ballon Bleu de Cartier Serti Vibrant which features over 100 diamonds on the dial that vibrate and quiver at the slightest movement. The source of the idea is the 19th-century jewellery en tremblant technique, where gemstones are set on springs to introduce movement. I am told that Cartier developed its own improvements to the tremblant technique with the help of technology from the pharmaceutical industry, and its modern setting method is now patented.
The fruits of the Maison des Métiers d’Art’s work are beautiful to behold, sure, but what really strikes me as I wander through this farmhouse is the human element. Craftsmanship at a level like this can be improved with technology, but it relies entirely on human involvement—eyes and hands that practise, perfect and perpetuate such exquisite work. The most touching thing that catches my eye is a workbench with a placard on it congratulating a craftswoman on the birth of her child. It has dates on it, reserving her space for when she returns from maternity leave. It’s a tiny detail in the scheme of things, but a little poignancy that puts a warmth, and a human value, on the objects of beauty that are crafted in this house.
Vogue Singapore’s July/August 2025 ‘Home’ issue is available on newsstands and online.
