IWC Schaffhausen presents “Engineering the Invisible”

In the heart of Milan, during Milan Design Week 2026, IWC Schaffhausen opens the doors of its boutique at Via Montenapoleone 21 to an immersive experience where art, design, and fine watchmaking converge. This is where “Engineering the Invisible” comes to life – a site-specific installation created by Andrea Crespi.

The work explores one of the most fascinating paradoxes of watchmaking: making tangible what is, by nature, invisible. Time has no shape, no weight, no colour, yet for over 150 years, IWC has been giving it form through mechanical precision, advanced engineering, and innovative materials. Crespi takes this legacy and transforms it into a visual experience.

A perceptual environment between light and absence

Through a striking black-and-white optical composition, the artist transforms the boutique into an immersive environment where visitors are invited to actively engage. Patterns, contrasts, and visual illusions create a language that does not reveal itself immediately: meaning emerges only through careful, slow, and conscious observation.

This is where art and time meet. No longer as measurement, but as perception.

Crespi, born in 1992 and active on the international contemporary art scene, has developed his practice precisely along this boundary: between the visible and the invisible, the physical and the digital. His approach – defined as “Neosynthesis” – removes the superfluous to reveal the essential, translating contemporary complexity into pure and rigorous visual forms.

Two timepieces, two extremes of visibility

At the centre of the installation, two timepieces physically embody this tension.

- The Portugieser Chronograph in Ceratanium® appears to dissolve into space. This IWC-developed material absorbs light through its dark, matte finish, pushing the object towards a state of near invisibility.

- The Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Ceralume®, by contrast, emits its own light. Crafted from IWC’s proprietary luminous ceramic, it continues to glow even in complete darkness. One disappears, the other resists disappearance. Together, they visually define the concept of Engineering the Invisible.

Contemporary art and fine watchmaking

The collaboration with Andrea Crespi is part of a broader journey for IWC Schaffhausen. Since its foundation, the Maison has built its identity on the meeting point between engineering and creativity, technical precision and aesthetic vision.

In this context, Crespi’s intervention is not simply an artistic installation, but a conceptual extension of the brand’s philosophy. Through visual language, the artist amplifies what watchmaking achieves through matter itself: giving shape to time.

An experience in the heart of the city

“Engineering the Invisible” will be on view throughout Milan Design Week and until the end of April 2026, transforming the IWC boutique into a space for reflection and discovery.

In a city that becomes a global laboratory of ideas during Design Week, the project stands out for its ability to bring together different disciplines within one coherent narrative. Here, design is not only function, art is not only expression, and time is no longer simply measured: it becomes experience.