Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Starwheel: wandering hours for the 21st century

The new Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Starwheel combines the best of the company’s past with the finest watchmaking prowess of its present.

The watch utilises the wandering hours complication that was first seen in the 1600s, and that reveals hours through a series of rotating satellites that travel along an arced minute scale.

Developed by the Roman Campani brothers in the 17th century, the wandering hours came from a request by Pope Alexander VII who wanted a clock that could be easily read at night and that was silent. Once a spectacle used for the finest pocket watches, the system fell out of favour in the 20th century with the introduction of wristwatches but was revisited by Audemars Piguet in 1991 and used in numerous models up until the early 2000s.

Named the Starwheel, the complication has now made another comeback, this time within Audemars Piguet’s newest and most architectural design, the Code 11.59. The 41mm case with octagonal middle section, combines new and old with black ceramic and white gold.

The open case without bezel provides the perfect housing for the wandering hours display. The minute arc runs from 10 to 2 o’clock, while an unobtrusive seconds chapter ring runs around the outer edge of the dial, the seconds being indicated by the single white-gold hand from the centre.

In the place of a conventional dial is a blue aventurine disc that provides a shimmering night-sky backdrop for the rotating, gently curved hour satellites. The discs are made in aluminium with a black PVD treatment and opaline sandblasted finish.

The sapphire crystal caseback reveals the 22-carat pink-gold oscillating weight that is a signature of the collection. The self-winding Calibre 4310 is a modular version of the Calibre 4309, with a power reserve of 70 hours.

The time display is achieved with a central rotor that circumnavigates the dial in three hours. The three aluminium satellites are fixed to this and also turn on their own axes. Each bears four numbers between 1and 12 representing the hours of the day.

Recognising horological history as well as its own watchmaking past, the Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Starwheel represents a fabulous reinterpretation of the past for contemporary watch lovers and collectors.