Moneo Black

Moneo on his Cauny:

When CAUNY asked me to design a watch I couldn’t help but think of the two occasions on which I had designed clocks: for the Logroño City Hall and for the Atocha Station. In both cases, the clock alludes to the meaning of the hours associated with the passing of the day: twelve o’clock — noon — as the summit of the day. The hours related to daily activity, distinguishing between morning and afternoon. Not as a succession of moments, something that so clearly happens with the beat of digital clocks. And the hours in Roman numerals and on the axes of the square, something that we so often see in sundials on the walls.

With such a starting point, entering into an experience like this — going from designing a clock on a building to the design of a wristwatch — has been a complete surprise. Working with millimeters and tenths of a millimeter, accustomed to thinking in terms of centimeters and meters, has been a disciplined exercise to which the presence of the texture of the materials was not alien, always making itself felt on our wrist. However, it was no surprise to see, time and again, that the sense of proportion has always been present and makes one think that both the clock and the watch came from the same hand.