A brief history of the development of the LUCE sundial

The LUCE sundial was not created overnight. The initial spark was a request from the world-famous designer Marc Newson to assist him as an expert in the development of a sundial.

Newson had already designed an oversized hourglass made of glass in 2012. Of course, it was not sand that trickled through the watch, but the finest spheres made of stainless steel and gold. A version with blue anodised titanium spheres has been available since 2024.

A sundial would be the ideal addition as another elemental clock. In seafaring, hourglasses and sundials were often used together for navigation. Albrecht Dürer already depicted an hourglass with a sundial in his painting Melencolia I from 1514.

When Marc Newson approached Carlo Heller in 2022, Carlo was working on a glass sundial that would also be a perfect match for the glass hourglass in terms of materials. Carlo Heller eagerly developed ideas, which can be read in the following documentation: glass sundial-12-12-2022.pdf

A video also shows how the glass sundial works:

When it came to the question of who would manufacture the glass sundial, opinions differed. Carlo Heller was determined not to relinquish control of the sundial's production and preferred to manufacture the object he had grown so fond of himself.

The development process for the glass sundial proved to be extremely challenging, but it was worth it. The LUCE, which finally came onto the market in 2025, meets the highest standards of function and design.