Rolex Headquarters Timeless Beauty

By Luca Maria Francesco Fabris - 1 September 2016
Targetti, Schüco, Guardian Glass have participated in the project

Building, as we all know, is a technical skill. Functions must be defined, volumes developed, the right materials found, and rules and regulations complied with. The result is a building, a component of the built environment we recognise all over the world. Architecture, on the other hand, is something completely different. Architecture requires those same basic technical ingredients to be combined with research, innovation and aesthetics in the design and construction phases so as to produce a finished building that conveys a universal value that will last in time. When all this happens, we have Architecture with a capital ‘A’ that will resist the test of time and continue unscathed through history. When this happens architecture becomes a powerful means of communication. Looking back in history, this is what has always happened. Wherever in the world, the best architecture, the architecture that has withstood time, has always been those buildings that have left a testimony of their age to future generations. They hand down a sign, a code, convey a sense of their contemporary, but also how they saw the future. A household name, the Rolex company is fully aware of this distinction, linking its name intimately with Architecture with a capital ‘A’. This Swiss maker of time-measuring instruments has for some time engaged with the world’s most prestigious contemporary architects, among them Pritzker winners, to design their new offices around the world. Together with several of them, the company has now developed the “Mentor and Protégé” programme that gives a young architect the opportunity to work alongside a world-renowned professional for a year. Rolex also actively supports major venues like the Venice Architecture Biennale. A smart communications strategy, it allows the company to tell its story of precision mechanics through a variety of architectural languages, which, like their watchmaker sponsor, have a passion for technological research geared to...