the movement slightly thicker but left the diameter unaltered.

The watch was bought by a collector who liked Franck Muller's initial idea of adding extra complications to the movement so much that he came to the conviction that there must be a possibility to add even more. In his search for someone who possessed the genius to incorporate further complications, into the already tight space inside the movement, he hit upon Paul Gerber. A tourbillon, the watchmaker's pièce de résistance, that's what he wanted, a flying one, at that. "I had never built one before", Paul Gerber remarks smilingly, thinking back, "but thanks to my experience in miniaturization I took the challenge."

The fact of being supported from one side only makes the flying tourbillon seem detached from the rest of the movement. The view of the delicate mechanism isn't obstructed by any bridge or cock. What was most nerve-wracking to Paul Gerber was the fact that for the incorporation the bottom plate had to be modified. "One little mistake while machining and the plate would have been gone for good, and with it the whole watch."

Even though Paul Gerber planned and tried the tourbillon and its position on the computer he took no risk and built an enlarged model to exclude errors right from the beginning. As the owner had wished, the original compensating balance wheel and its Breguet hairspring were used. Here, too, utmost care had to be taken. The tourbillon's cage Paul Gerber constructed for the movement leaves maximum sight for the balance wheel by holding its upper bearing with the index by two spokes only. Despite the unilateral support made from one single piece, the tourbillon is perfectly balanced.

Gerber's masterpiece, which was presented at the "Basel 1995," aroused further wishes in his customer. "Wasn't there a possibility to add a chronograph mechanism", he wanted to know. And that's how the watch found its way onto Paul Gerber's table once more. "To be honest, next to all my other projects and orders I don't really have the time for it, but the temptation is just too big," the silent but humorous man has to admit.

He was not content with a simple chronograph mechanism and, anticipating his customer, added a rattrapante with fly-back and a jumping minute counter. Additionally, he equipped the two mainsprings for the movement and the striking mechanism with a power reserve indication. All this, however, wouldn't have been possible without creating a little more space: for the two extra seconds hands from the center, a bridge had to be added, which made the movement only 2.1 mm thicker. This was the right occasion for a new case back with a sapphire glass in whose platinum ring engravings show the  names of the three watchmakers involved in the making of the movement.

Somewhere around this point the wish must have arisen in Paul Gerber to be able to see the movement from an insect's perspective. For the chronograph a column wheel and the levers had to be inserted, which are responsible for the functions of start, stop, reset and fly-back, operated by the pushers, and the rattrapante, operated by the button in the middle of the crown. "The levers have the most adventurous shapes because the distance from the pushers to the column-wheel and the reset-hearts could only be bridged with deviations," Paul Gerber laughs whilst he places a selection of tiny levers on the table that didn't fulfill their function because they were either too weak or touched somewhere.

To operate the pincers that stop the rattrapante-hand at command, Gerber devised an elegant solution in the form of a hexagonal wheel that looks like a nut. The insides of the pincers press against its sides and are opened as the wheel turns by a twelfth of a circle.

Paul Gerber reflects the one thing one normally expects from a watchmaker: he is calmness personified. The 51-year old from Bern has been living in Albisrieden near Zurich since 1976 where he installed a small workshop in the cellar of his house in a green area. "Laboratory" would probably be the better term because despite the scarceness of space, meticulous cleanliness and order are imperative. No sign of facings are to be seen on the floor, as is the custom in other workshops. Paul Gerber immediately puts on his white frock as he enters the room, which by the architect had been intended for the washing machine.

Next door is the alchemist's room, this is where gold and rhodium plating is done. And, because inside a watch, room is scarce, watchmakers usually don't need much of it either. So it's no wonder that apart from Paul Gerber there are two more people working in the lab. His apprentice, Simone Hirzel, is in her third year at the watchmaker's school in Solothurn. She and the watchmaker, Martin Schiess, help him to accomplish the orders that should not be forgotten next to the "Louis-Elisée-Piguet." Gerber's wife, Ruth, looks after the office work. It was for her that he left his hometown of Bern and moved to Zurich. Where, in 1976, he took over a watch shop. After a while the learned watchmaker didn't find satisfaction behind the shop counter.

It was the inside of the watch that was his passion. Since he didn't fancy working as an employee, Gerber decided to become self-employed. He was already able to offer exclusivity: in 1977 he had started to construct miniature pendulum clocks. In 1989, the year in which he joined the AHCI, the Academy of independent watchmakers, one of his constructions even made it into the Guinness Book Of World Records. The miniature clockwork, of the world's smallest wood-geared clock that is weight-driven, features a cow's tail pendulum in front of the dial and a verge escapement. It measures a mere 2.2 centimeters in height. As a gag, Gerber built in two eyes that stare out of the watchcase and move once in a minute. The wooden miniatures still belong to Gerber's economic basis, as one can easily see looking at a wall where half a dozen mini-pendulums are swinging nervously in time.

Thanks to a "pendulette mystérieuse" that he constructed with and for Gerd Dorschfeld, he achieved recognition with Fabergé, the manufacturer, for whom he has been constructing complicated desk clocks with musical boxes since 1996.

One year later he integrated a clearly audible alarm mechanism into a 7750 ETA Valjoux movement for Fortis, in Grenchen, without making the watch much bigger.