Three friends who had spent their careers creating for other watch brands founded kollokium in 2020, to make watches with no inherited history, one project at a time.
How it began
The founders, pictured on the About Us page, are Amr Sindi, Barth Nussbaumer and Manuel Emch. Each went down a different path in the industry, but they found common ground in a shared aesthetic. After a collective lifetime contributing to numerous Swiss and international watch brands, they wanted to build something from scratch. That meant no existing brand, no defined artistic direction and no rehashed history. The company, kollokium GmbH, has its registered office in Wollerau, Switzerland.
The idea
The founders insist that the name stands for a project-based platform rather than a brand. Its purpose is to explore new possibilities in watchmaking from alternative perspectives. They call the look neubrutalist: a bit of post-war brutalism, some Kraftwerk synth-pop and a Philip K. Dick retrofuturistic backdrop. The site sets traditional watchmaking, as classical opera, against its own indie, gritty science-fiction noir.
The house is also plain about what it is not. Under the heading “kollokium ≠ watchmaker”, it explains that the Projekt 01 runs on a La Joux-Perret G101 automatic movement with a power reserve of 68 hours. Since kollokium had nothing to do with the movement, it left the calibre unbranded and undecorated. Its attention goes to the case and the dial.
The watches
Projekt 01 appeared in 2023 as a Friends & Family edition. Its dial is a 3D reconstruction of an intentionally pixelated image, set with 468 cylindrical markers in six diameters and heights. Each pin is applied by hand, sandblasted, then filled with Super-LumiNova, also by hand. There is no visible branding on the dial.
The 40.0mm case is die-cast from 316L steel instead of being milled, a method the brand chose for a raw, industrial finish. It leaves a surface that the site describes as neither matte nor frosty, with edges slightly rounded by the process.
Projekt 02 took two years to develop, from an idea first proposed in the earliest brainstorming days in 2020. Its topographical dial is built from 67 dial plates at different heights. It made its debut in a 199-piece Friends, Family, Fools & Flippers edition. The monobloc die-cast case has no caseback and no detachable lugs. Its only mark is the project name, K,P–n°02, in relief on the side.
The house today
In 2025 the house introduced Lichtblock, its own luminescent ceramic-resin hybrid material. Projekt 01 Variant H closes the circle that began with the Friends & Family edition in 2023. Its dial needs 2 grammes of Super-LumiNova, where one gramme usually serves 200 to 300 traditional dials. Across its 488 pins and Lichtblock hands, the brand says, it carries as much lume as nearly 500 traditional dials.
Some details recur: die-cast steel, the signature triangular valve-shaped crown and a strap inspired by outdoor gear. The logo stays off the dial, and each project goes by its internal dossier name.
At a glance
- Founded: 2020
- Founders: Amr Sindi, Barth Nussbaumer and Manuel Emch
- Based in: Wollerau, Switzerland
- Known for: die-cast steel cases, the 468-pin Projekt 01 dial, the topographical Projekt 02 dial, Lichtblock
- Independent: kollokium GmbH, with no parent company named on its site
Sources: kollokium’s own website (Home, About Us, Projekt 01 F&F&F and Projekt 02 FFF&F Edition pages, Legal notice).