The Vallée, Audemars Piguet’s Collectors Lounge at Art Basel in Miami Beach

The timeworn strata, scree and striations of Switzerland’s Vallée de Joux were both inspiration and material source for Brooklyn-based artist and designer Fernando Mastrangelo’s installation within Audemars Piguet Collectors Lounge at this year’s Art Basel in Miami Beach. Wallpaper* visited the 144-year-old watch manufacturer’s HQ in Le Brassus and, taking in both spectacular geology and fine horology, created a series of short videos specifically for social media to celebrate the collaboration.

We saw the limestone quarries, spruce forests, underground streams and caves of the surrounding mountains that prompted the design of the installation, called The Vallée, which also acknowledges the complex geometry of the manufacture’s new Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet wristwatch.

To create the unique lounge environment, Mastrangelo worked with Jura rock samples, along with sand, rock salt and silica. His design features a textural, 17ft wall, crushed crystal chandeliers in stalagmite form, blackened spruce trees reimagined as showcases, an ‘escape room’ employing LED technology to replicate the Vallée de Joux sunset, and an octagonal relaxation area that recalls the geometry of the new Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet.

‘My eye is always looking for those particular moments in nature,’ says Mastrangelo. ‘I try to record the way the world looks today, because I’m afraid that it’s not going to look the same in the near future. Part of this project is creating an archive of what exists now. The Vallée is a journey that begins in the spruce forest, takes you to the quarry where limestone is extracted and ends up back on the mountain watching the sunset. The idea is that I’m showing Audemars Piguet’s extraordinary history through its spectacular location and environment.’

The Vallée de Joux’s indigenous limestone became an important element of the lounge because, historically, as Mastrangelo learned, the rock was also central to watchmaking. ‘Back in the 19th century, watchmakers would burn spruce trees in an oven and melt the limestone. The metal extracted from the stone was then used to make the watches. So the rocks of the Jura region were what allowed watchmaking to find its home in the Vallée de Joux. Today, that same limestone is used to make mountain roads and build houses. A natural resource is extracted but then put back into the infrastructure of the place. I like that idea.’

Acknowledging the design of the Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet timepiece, Mastrangelo conceived the installation with a circular floorplan, a visual reference to the natural world’s circle of life. ‘I wanted to think about time in a natural and geological sense. Trees, caves, layers of rock – the formation of all these things takes an extreme amount of time.’