The ingratitude of Geneva*

Geneva’s internationally renowned symbol, the jet d’eau, celebrates its 120th anniversary in 2011. In the one Swiss city that perhaps owes the most to watchmaking, no-one has thought to recall its watchmaking origins!

Few people, whether just passing through the city or admiring it from afar, would so much as suspect what odd sensibilities are enshrined in the city and its elites. The inhabitant of Geneva, especially if he is a political animal, sometimes tends to consider watchmaking a necessary evil. Not that he does not appreciate the economic importance of the industry, or even the number of jobs it provides, or even the tax contribution share it generates, but, with those sensibilities being suffused with the remnants of a Calvinist ethos known to have abolished all outward trappings of wealth, he has a tendency to become the critic in the face of what he sees. And what he sees is not the watchmaking industry as a whole, but rather, one of its more arriviste expressions.

Snapshots of hyper luxe
To start with, we have an international trade fair, created around twenty years ago by a number of breakaway brands keen to set up on their own, firstly because BaselWorld was not prestigious enough for their liking and secondly due to the pervading smell of fried sausage. Thus, with the SIHH came the arrival of the fine watchmaking concept, a concept that flatly disowned other types of watchmaking to the extent that some of its exhibitors, including certain brands belonging to the same group, would give their eye teeth to see an establishment such as Baume & Mercier banished from the hallowed halls of their institution. Thus leading to a negation of history and a confused idea of prestige…

Also responsible for this partial, truncated vision are the local or national press, who always have such a field day with their outrageous flights of fancy about some of the watches sold at the city’s auctions, or the ‘talking pieces’ that are used to convey some kind of message or other, championing either the expertise of the large complication in one piece, or the disproportionate number of precious stones embellishing the visible surfaces in another. At a time when a number of outraged folk are also putting in their thruppence-worth on the subject, mind-boggling prices are serving to emphasise the true social divisions, the gulf between the reality of the common mortal and the super-rich who now pass through in unusually high numbers… It is therefore appropriate, I think, when it comes to the question of indigenous watchmaking, to adopt a dubious wrinkling of the brow and assume a reproving air.

Resetting the clocks
In the face of these well-meaning figureheads who have seemingly lost their way and are now happy to wallow in error, it is a good idea to put an abrupt end to the goitre that is the politically correct local who forgets that, beyond the sumptuous window displays and showcases offering the ultimate luxury, if there is any such thing as an industrial worker sector, then it is watchmaking. This is borne out by two observations: firstly the watchmaking industry is peopled by the worker, his hands all too often soiled by grease and grubby from the dirt of polishing swarf, the common or garden worker whom the global market has elevated to the noble rank of prestigious, nimble-fingered artisan; his oil-tinged sweat, his patience-of-a-saint, his eyesight destroyed by over-concentration… the simple, endearing attributes of a minion who only rarely has the opportunity of handling the unattainable object of desire that he has helped to create once it is finished. Secondly, it is a sector in its own right since there is no question of relocation. It has been proven that the same job done in Annemasse, Saint-Julien, Morez or Morteau would be worth half as much as if it had been done in Thônex, Plan-Les-Ouates, Le Sentier or Le Locle. Not because the skills are any better over on that side of the lake given the ample border workforce in Swiss workshops, but because that kind of unmerited immaterial blessing lends Swiss made territory an inexplicable added value.

The Cabinotiers and the jet d’eau
And now, with this year’s celebrations marking the 120th anniversary of the jet d’eau, we have reached the absolute pinnacle of Geneva’s bass and latent ingratitude towards its legendary industry. For it is to watchmaking that the city owes this crowning jewel and major symbol of a world tourism that never tires of its ephemeral, living spectacle! There was, in fact, a time when milling was conducted with water in place of oil. It is interesting to note that the parts in question were cooled down by being blasted with massive amounts of water to prevent them from overheating under the effect of the milling machine. And yet, the very craftsmen to whom the SIG (Geneva’s Industrial Services in charge of the city’s water supply) alludes in its official brochure, were workers in the watchmaking industry, the so-called cabinotiers. The story goes that all the taps in the different companies were opened by the workers at the start of the day and then at the end of their day’s work, when they were all turned off more or less at the same time, the whole of the piping system was said to have reached explosion point under the incredible pressure. Therefore the SIG, supposedly after one telling incident, installed a decompression system in the little harbour, which thus created a short-lived balletic fountain display every day at the same time, much to the delight of passers-by. And it was this spectacle that gave rise to the idea of turning it into a symbol and moving it to its present site, where it continues to reside as a world-wide fairy-tale attraction. It is the most photographed construction in Geneva and predates the floral clock (I’ll get back there one of these days).

Believe it or not, every time I have had occasion to tell this story to the city’s officials, including one former mayor, I have been shocked at the look of surprise on their faces. When confronted with the story of the fountain, they have all been utterly non-plussed. To someone who is passionate about watchmaking, its industrial and cultural history, such ignorance is inadmissible. For the true origins of the jet d’eau, erased for I-know-not-what good reason, can be found neither in the Swiss history books, nor in the press, nor even in the city’s collective conscience… Beautiful, ungrateful Geneva.

{*} See also opinion column published end 2011 in Heure Suisse no.115