Handwerkskunst!

The origin of the mechanical clock remains unknown, but its invention revolutionized daily life. No longer did people rely on the rooster's crow or nightfall to structure their day. A mechanical clock’s precision depends on the perfect interaction of cogwheels, escapement, weight train, hands, and striking mechanism. Achieving this requires patience, skill, and a deep sense of accuracy. For over 175 years, the Mayer family has upheld this tradition. Adalbert and Clemens Mayer’s great-great-great-grandfather began repairing and selling watches, and today, their company AMS continues to design and manufacture clocks in Furtwangen, Black Forest. This town, home to Germany’s oldest watchmaking school and the German Watch Museum, blends tradition with modernity, producing both handcrafted wall clocks and advanced radio-controlled timepieces.

Andreas Hildebrandt, one of Germany’s last bespoke tailors, creates high-tech masterpieces in the form of men’s suits. Each suit, crafted in the Italian style, requires 60 hours of meticulous handwork. He uses premium fabrics from Italian mills and hand-carved horn buttons from a small Bavarian village. Despite catering to high-profile clients from business and politics, Hildebrandt sticks to his principles—rejecting fleeting trends to ensure timeless elegance. Every detail, from arm position to hip alignment, influences the suit’s perfect fit. A tailoring prodigy, Hildebrandt completed his apprenticeship at 17 as Germany’s top apprentice and gained experience in Düsseldorf and Hamburg. He later led Breuninger’s bespoke tailoring department, the only one of its kind in a European department store. Now self-employed, he runs his own atelier in Stuttgart, offering craftsmanship driven by passion, precision, and tradition.

The centuries-old craft of bookbinding goes back to the monks - “bourgeois bookbinding” has existed since the 15th century. Master bookbinder Johannes Schneider shows step by step how a book is bound by hand in his 125-year-old bookbindery in Mainz. In the manual bindery, Johannes Schneider produces individual pieces and small series - from simple brochures to magnificent leather volumes. He restores and repairs historical books for private collectors. He has bound the Golden Book of the city of Mainz and has also worked for the Pope. It takes around 30 steps to bind a stack of paper and combine it with a leather cover to create a small work of art. Even in digital times, family chronicles, booklet collections and high-quality books are still lovingly produced in small editions for book lovers.

Church windows are true works of art, crafted far from industrial mass production. Jürgen Maur from Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler is one of the few remaining artisans skilled in creating lead glass windows for churches. His process involves cutting colorful glass into precise curves, placing the pieces into lead casings, and soldering them together to form stunning windows. Some windows are also hand-painted with sacred motifs, adding to the complexity. This demanding craftsmanship combines skill and creativity, which is why Maur considers himself both an artisan and an artist. Currently, he is creating three windows for a chapel in Eitelborn, Westerwald, demonstrating the intricate process behind these timeless works of art.

Willi Corall from Siefersheim crafts unique hook harps, dedicating 80 to 120 hours to each instrument. His passion for instrument-making began in childhood, and he specializes in creating harps that offer adjustable pitch, a feature introduced in the 18th century. Corall prefers using local woods, stored under a walnut tree in his garden, which give each harp its unique color and grain. It takes him seven years to carve parts from wild cherry wood, and he sources high-quality spruce from Mittenwald for the soundboards. For Corall, his work is not just craftsmanship but a deep dialogue with the materials, blending passion, humility, and devotion.