Launched in the midst of the quartz crisis, Corum’s Golden Bridge model focused people’s minds on what really mattered in Switzerland’s traditional watch industry: the movement. Vincent Calabrese, who developed the model, believed that “the case shouldn’t represent the coffin for the movement” and thus wanted to show off the ace up Switzerland’s watchmaking sleeve for all to see.
The result was a movement that had as few direct connections with the case as possible. The immediate parallel is with a bridge, which links two opposing points either side of a physical obstacle (and is handily a familiar term in watchmaking), making the “Golden Bridge” name almost predestined. Even before the fasion for skeletonisation, the Golden Bridge had already established itself as the purest expression of mechanical watchmaking. It has since spawned numerous different versions, including ladies’ models and a unique self-winding version with a linear winding mechanism. But it has never had a round case, until now…
The distinctive baguette-shaped CO113 calibre that powers the watch, hand-wound in this case, could only come from a brand capable of designing and producing its own movements in-house. The gold in the “Golden Bridge” is not just a name, however, since the mainplate and bridges of this calibre are indeed made out of 18-carat gold rather than the more common brass or nickel silver used in other movements. But this is only fitting, given that the movement can be inspected from all four sides thanks to transparent sapphire crystals on the front and back and an additional crystal ring in the case middle. Despite its slender configuration, the movement beats at a robust 28,000 vibrations per hour and offers 40 hours of power reserve.
While the tried and tested movement remains the same, the new round case for the Golden Bridge adopts a new design approach, taking inspiration from a real-world Golden Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, for the skeleton structure visible either side of the movement. Like the case, mainplate and movement, these structural elements are in 18-carat rose gold and capture the unique “International Orange” colour of the paint that is used to coat the Golden Gate Bridge.
The new Corum Golden Bridge Round is launched simultaneously in two different versions, one in red gold with all matching red-gold elements, and a jewellery version in white gold with a white-gold movement and white-gold decorative elements set with a total of 84 full-cut diamonds.
