Two of the most groundbreaking watches of this century come from a pair of brands near the bottom of any alphabetical listing of watch companies.
Ulysse Nardin’s Freak, introduced in 2001, replaced the traditional dial and hands with a flying carousel, putting the movement front and center of the watch. Even more notably, it was the first watch to ever use silicon parts in its escapement — a practice that has since become commonplace among luxury brands.
Then there’s Urwerk, which launched its first watch, the UR-101, in 1997, featuring a wandering hours complication. Over the next several years, Urwerk would lead a revolution in avant-garde horology with its patented UR-Satellite hours complication, first seen on the brand’s Opus in 2005.
At Dubai Watch Week 2025, Ulysse Nardin and Urwerk have unveiled the UR-Freak — a truly collaborative watch powered by a brand-new movement that combines the Freak’s flying carousel and dial-side silicon escapement with Urwerk’s UR-Satellite time-telling display.
The Freak goes to Werk
At the heart of the UR-Freak is a brand-new movement, the Ulysse Nardin Calibre UN-241, which was codeveloped with Urwerk. The movement and the case, which is also brand-new, required the development of 150 all-new components. In other words, bringing this watch to life was a hell of a lot more involved than almost every other “collaborative” watch ever made.
The new movement is based on the Cal. UN-240, which is used in the Ulysse Nardin Freak One, the purest expression of the traditional Freak form in the brand’s current lineup. As such, the new calibre features a dial-side oscillator in full silicon, with its balance wheel and spring being 25 percent larger than is typical. Here, the oscillator is centrally mounted, allowing it to adapt to the UR-Satellite display instead of the Freak’s typical rotating hour marker and flying carousel “minute hand.”
