As it celebrates this year’s 100th anniversary of the minimalist Bauhaus design movement, Junghans debuts a spare yet colorful limited collection called Form A 100 Years of Bauhaus. The new 1,000-piece limited edition commemorates the color wheel, an evolutionary look at primary, secondary and tertiary colors as espoused by Swiss-born painter and educator Johannes Itten.
Briefly, Itten was one of the first theorists to associate different colors with specific emotions. He studied how color impacts our moods, and how individuals perceive and react to color. To accomplish its ode to Itten’s artistic theory, Junghans replaces all twelve hour markers on this watch’s dial with twelve squares representing the shades of the Itten color wheel.
A representation of the Itten color wheel idea on a round watch dial makes perfect sense for Junghans, a German-based watch and clockmaker steeped in Bauhaus design. Junghans spaces all twelve primary, secondary and tertiary colors evenly around the dial of the 39.3mm steel-cased Form A. Thus, the hour markers range from blue, yellow and red (primary colors) to secondary colors of orange, green and violet, and so on.
The result is an unusually cheery dial that, with the date window, is actually less minimalist and more practical than many Bauhaus-inspired dials. The watch’s slim bezel and thin hands jibe nicely with the design, though I’m not as sold on the fairly busy Milanese bracelet attaching the Form A to the wrist. A simple black leather or fabric strap might actually do a better job of highlighting the dial colors. Inside Junghans places the ETA-based J800.2 automatic caliber, visible from the caseback and sporting a logo-decorated rotor.
Price: $1,095.
Specifications: Junghans Form A 100 Years of Bauhaus
Movement: Self-winding J800.2 with a power reserve of up to 38 hours, rapid date adjustment, polished rotor with engraved Junghans logo
Case: 39.3mm by 9.5mm steel with flat sapphire crystal with anti-reflection coating on one side, screwed case back with tinted mineral crystal, 50 meters of water resistance
Dial: Concave, matte fine silver-plated with imprinted hour markings. The color scheme of the hour markings is inspired by the color wheel from Johannes Itten. Hour and minute hands with environmentally friendly SuperLuminova
Strap: Stainless steel Milanese bracelet with safety buckle