MB&F M.A.D.Gallery x Martin Smith - Solar Orbiter Watch Winder

The M.A.D.Gallery’s 15th Anniversary Festivities continue with Martin Smith and the Solar Orbiter Watch Winder.

This year, the M.A.D.Gallery is inviting several of its mechanical artists to imagine special limited editions for its 15th anniversary. The creative celebrations started with Berlin-based designer Frank Buchwald and his ML15 Helios, a sculptural light built around the idea of a mechanical sun. Now it is the turn of British designer Martin Smith, who also found inspiration in the M.A.D. Gallery’s 15 journeys around the sun with his Solar Orbiter watch winder.

Like Buchwald, Smith was one of the first designers to contribute to the M.A.D.Gallery, working under the name of Laikingland, the creative collaboration he founded with lifelong friend and engineer Nick Regan. Laikingland brought a playful mechanical spirit to the gallery with kinetic sculptures that played with themes of humour, nonsense and futility. Together, they created works including The Applause Machine and Fingers, the latter designed by Nik Ramage.

The Solar Orbiter Watch Winder

For this anniversary creation, Smith has designed and produced a sculptural watch winder from his own studio in West Yorkshire. The brief was simply to create a kinetic object that would signal the M.A.D.Gallery’s 15 years. Smith had been working on a number of windpowered works which naturally led him to the idea of the sun. “When Max saw the design, he asked if it could become a watch winder, which was funny because I could kind of see that coming!” explains Smith with a smile.

Called the Solar Orbiter, Smith describes it as: “chaotic, mesmerizing, sophisticated in its construction, and a bit quirky”. Keen eyes will notice that it incorporates elements from all the works Smith and Laikingland had previously created for the M.A.D.Gallery, including the clapping hand and heart. The design draws upon his love for toys with interchangeable parts and captures the spirit of the Eames Solar Do-Nothing Machine, an aluminium solar-powered sculpture created in the 1950s to demonstrate solar electricity long before it was a thing.

For Smith, it was important that the mechanism should not resemble a watch movement. His original idea was to use 15 wheels as a nod to the 15th anniversary, but unfortunately a few more had to be added to make the sculpture function! Each piece is crafted from over 300 handmade parts in steel, aluminium, brass and carved-wood and comes with an interchangeable heart, hand, and star. Measuring 60 cm in height, with a width and depth of 40 cm, it is powered by custom electronics that allow for different winding speeds that operate in total silence. There will be 10 numbered pieces. Each one comes in a custom shipping crate that features a screen printing of the Solar Orbiter on the outside.

My sister and brother-in-law have a screen-printing business so we decided to screen print a design of the Solar Orbiter on the outside of the crate. It turned out so well that you could almost hang it on your wall, which then made us worry that it might get damaged in transit. So now the crate is protected inside a cardboard box.” he shares. There is also a numbered and signed print inside the box that serves as the certificate of authenticity.

Part kinetic sculpture and part horological accessory, the Solar Orbiter captures the spirit that has defined the M.A.D.Gallery since its inception by showcasing mechanical creativity in all its forms. Martin Smith’s latest creation reminds us that mechanical art is at its most compelling when it brings together imagination, engineering and playfulness.

About Martin Smith

Martin Smith is a British artist based in West Yorkshire whose practice explores how people perceive and interpret space. He creates large-scale architectural commissions that engage viewers through mechanical movement, transforming their relationship with the surroundings. Smith also produces kinetic devices that examine themes of repetition, precision, and constraint with utopian objects and spaces forming the conceptual core of his current work.

The M.A.D.Gallery Concept

The M.A.D.Gallery opened its doors in Geneva’s Old Town in October 2011. The goal was never to build a chain of brand boutiques, but to find a compelling way to explain MB&F’s Horological Machines. Indeed, in the early days the brand’s retail partners sometimes struggled to explain MB&F’s three-dimensional, kinetic Horological Machines. Eager to find a solution, MB&F founder Maximilian Büsser even approached art galleries to see if they would be interested in selling them, but the gallery owners would just stare at the early HMs and exclaim: “But these aren’t art, they’re watches!”

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Undeterred, Büsser decided to open his own gallery, bringing together mechanical art in all its forms to help tell the story of his timepieces. No one in the company had experience in retail – or working in an art gallery, for that matter – but that did not stop them.

Over the following months, Büsser travelled the world in search of like-minded artists. Among the first creators to be captivated by the gallery project was Chicara Nagata, a Japanese artist renowned for transforming vintage motorcycle engines into highly detailed mechanical “road machines”. Also among those pioneers was Frank Buchwald with his striking Machine Lights, or Laikingland, a creative label crafting playful kinetic objects. Many others would follow.

The first location in Geneva opened under the name M.A.D.Gallery, short for Mechanical Art Devices. No one knew if the M.A.D.Gallery would be successful. “In the beginning, we were more interested in creating a space that made sense, and secretly hoped to perhaps sell the art – but had no idea if anyone would actually buy it,” shared Büsser. “We were so unprepared; we didn’t even have a credit card machine. So, when about a week after the opening, someone asked to purchase one of the mechanical art devices, we had to ask them to pay in cash!”

The idea of bringing likeminded people together in one space quickly grew beyond simply explaining MB&F’s Horological Machines. The M.A.D.Gallery became a home for artists whose work did not fit into the conventional art gallery scene. It also became a platform for collaborations and led to co-creations with partners such as Reuge and L’Epée 1839. But this was not all; it also evolved into a meeting place for MB&F’s community of watch lovers, a place to drop in and discover a constantly changing array of mechanical art devices.

The 15th Anniversary

2026 marks the 15th anniversary of the M.A.D.Gallery, an adventure which started in Geneva and has since spread to Dubai – but also in a more compact form, dubbed “MB&F Labs”, in Taipei, Singapore, Paris, Beverly Hills and Menlo Park (Silicon Valley). More recently, New York also joined the list with the opening of an MB&F Lounge in Manhattan.

To celebrate the anniversary, the M.A.D.Gallery has invited several of its mechanical artists to create special limited editions for its 15th anniversary. Following-up Frank Buchwald and Martin Smith (Laikingland), other limited-edition mechanical art devices will join the celebrations over the upcoming months, giving collectors even more reason to visit.

Technical specifications

MB&F M.A.D.Gallery x Martin Smith - Solar Orbiter Watch Winder

Limited edition of 10 pieces

Each piece is composed of nearly 300 individually handcrafted parts.

Dimensions

• Width: 40cm x Height: 60cm – Depth: 40cm

Materials

• Powder-coated steel, stainless steel, aluminium, brass, carved wood, motor, and custom electronics.

Power

• 12V DC via a universal plug-in transformer.

Additional features

• Each work is supplied in a bespoke wooden crate with a precision-cut foam interior for secure transport and storage. Included is an A2 screen-printed Certificate of Authenticity, signed and numbered by the artist.

MSRP: CHF 9’900

For more information, please visit mbandf.com