Now in its 14th year, the Watch Art Grand Exhibition is a large-scale, roving celebration of fine watchmaking and rare handcrafts hosted by Patek Philippe, Geneva’s last remaining family-owned independent watch manufacturer.
Starting in Dubai in 2012, each event has summarised the achievements of the 187-year-old company through displays transported from its own museum on the Rue des Vieux-Grenadiers along with special editions created exclusively to mark its presence in the host city (Munich followed Dubai in 2013, after which the event has travelled to London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo). These one-of-a-kind and limited pieces often combine the various metiers for which Patek Philippe is renowned and, together with the current collection on display, contribute to a total of 500 of wristwatches, table clocks and pocket watches on show in Milan.
This year’s installment, open 2-18 October, is the largest yet, and occupies 2,900 square metres within the art deco Palazzo delle Scintille – renamed the CityOval in recognition of architect Paolo Vietti-Violi’s elliptical dome – where Milan itself appears in cartographic form, commemorated in an intricately mapped table clock that features the Duomo picked out in golden silhouette. It’s one of a 25-piece series of site-specific editions celebrating Italy’s most famous regions.
Using Patek Philippe’s renowned mastery of techniques – including enamelling, engraving, gem-setting and wood marquetry – each piece creates a vivid voyage around Italy and, in the case of four wristwatches, nods to one of its most cherished modes of transport with depictions of Fiat’s lauded Cinquecento. Included on the grand tour are Rome, for which a Dome clock has been decorated to resemble the capital’s architectural wonders by night; Tuscany, recognised in ten Golden Eclipse wristwatches, their dials capturing its vivid sunsets in dials using wood marquetry; and the Amalfi Coast, where Neapolitan summers are brought to life using enamel and miniature painting on three Calatrava watches.
Other artisanal skills rendered in horological form include two Calatrava wristwatches celebrating the craft of lace-making found on the Venetian island of Burano; Murano glass, in the form of a small Dome table clock, and Florentine mosaic, its signature stone marquetry reproduced on the dial of a gem-set Calatrava Minute Repeater using grand feu cloisonné enamelling and painted enamel.
Besides celebrating the culture and craftsmanship of its host city, the Watch Art Grand Exhibition also serves as a launch pad for fresh innovation – on this occasion, a chance to mark 85 years since Patek Philippe first united perpetual calendar and chronograph functions in a wristwatch. The latest version of Patek’s emblematic high complication is equipped with a new calibre capable of advancing all four date windows (day, date, month, leap year) simultaneously and instantaneously: the moment at midnight lasting just 30 milliseconds. Limited to 120 pieces, all in platinum, Reference 5978P-010 occupies a groundbreaking position in the history of Patek Philippe, while building on the innovations of the past – an important statement for a company that chooses to forego the more tangible benefits of partnering with celebrities and sporting events to focus on its own, meticulously staged live events (a nine-metre-tall recreation of Geneva’s famous Jet d’Eau, using 2,028 glass ‘droplets’, serves as a centrepiece).
According to Thierry Stern, the fourth generation to run the business since his family acquired it in 1932, the idea sprang from his father’s urge to go further following the opening of the Patek Philippe Museum in 2001, in Geneva: ‘For my father, one of the most important tasks was to rebuild the history of Patek Philippe. And after that, I think he decided to see how he could bring it to the whole world; because not everybody is able to come to Geneva.’
That the last iteration of the Watch Art Grand Exhibition, in Tokyo, attracted 74,000 visitors – around the same number of watches Patek Philippe produces each year – suggests Philippe Stern, who died aged 86 in June this year, was on to something. In Milan, the moment has grown again, with 15 themed areas dedicated to explaining – and thus advocating for – the perennial appeal of mechanical watchmaking, illustrated in the various crafts and disciplines long mastered by Patek Philippe that underpin its continued relevance.
Yet, in an age when ‘experiential’ has become a buzzword applied to even the lowliest of IRL opportunities, the challenge is to renew with each edition. Accordingly, in Milan – which is open free to the public – more space has been given to exploring the company’s rich archive, a new area dedicated to research and development explains the inner workings of its latest calibres (and the growing importance of after-sales), and a special audio-visual presentation places particular focus on its famed chiming watches.
‘I think to keep it fresh, you’re always trying to innovate a little bit,’ says Thierry Stern, ‘Not only the product, but the philosophy of the brand. So you have to add something, and you have to educate people with something concrete. They like to see, they like to touch, you know, so you have to really give them this.’
Watch Art Grand Exhibition – Milan 2026 runs from Friday 2 to Sunday 18 October 2026, at CityOval, previously known as the Palazzo delle Scintille, in the CityLife quarter.