kollokium
kollokium is emphatically not a brand. As the founders themselves acknowledge — with equal parts self-awareness and conviction — that sounds pretentious and clichéd, but it is true. kollokium is a project-based platform, founded in 2020 by three friends: Amr Sindi, Barth Nussbaumer, and Manuel Emch. Each took a different professional path through the Swiss and international watch industry, but the three converged around a shared set of aesthetic sensibilities that no existing brand could fully express for them. After collectively spending a lifetime contributing to the creativity of numerous established houses, the desire to build something entirely from scratch — with no inherited framework, no defined artistic direction, no rehashed history, and no compromises of structure — became too strong to suppress.
The platform they describe is captured in their own manifesto: 'A bit of post-war brutalism, some Kraftwerk synth-pop and a Philip K. Dick retrofuturistic backdrop.' kollokium seeks to materialise timepieces that transcend the confines of traditional watchmaking while remaining — unambiguously, always — analog watches. The references are wide: architecture and design, contemporary art, subcultures. The mood they pursue is what they term 'neubrutalist horology' — an aesthetic that may appear simple on first glance but reveals more detail the longer it is studied. The textures. The depth. The contrast. The interplay of industrial and fantastical, of controlled chaos. As they put it: 'If traditional watchmaking is a classical opera, kollokium is an indie, gritty sci-fi noir.'
The Projekt 01 is the debut output — 'uninspiringly dubbed,' as the founders note with characteristic dry wit. Its purpose was not to define a permanent design language but to establish a vibe and the kind of avenues the platform wished to explore. Eight variants were released across successive drops, each a further evolution: the founding Friends & Family edition (F&F&F, CHF 2,333.33), Variant B (CHF 2,666.66), Variant D, Variants E1 and E2, Variants G1 and G2 (CHF 2,999.99 each), and the more elaborate Variant F (CHF 3,666.66). Each was limited to a small number of pieces; all are now sold out. The Projekt 02 is the second release — architectural yet organic, industrial yet handcrafted, three-dimensional yet relatively compact. Its defining feature is a topographical dial composed of 67 individual stacked dial plates arranged across nine layers, creating a landscape-like terrain of depth and relief that is unlike any conventional dial construction. The case is a slim barrel-shaped die-cast steel body with a sapphire glass box. Two variants were released: the FFF&F Edition (CHF 3,333.33) and Variant B (CHF 3,666.66), both sold out. The image you chose is from Projekt 02 Variant B, showcasing the multi-layer topographical dial in its most fully realised form.