Three New Rado True Round Special Editions Capture the Color Theory of Designer Le Corbusier

You do not necessarily have to be a keen fan of modernist design to have felt the profound impact of Le Corbusier. Born Charles-Édouard Jeannette in 1887 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, a town that is also one of the undisputed meccas of watchmaking, his work particularly resonates with the industry (Fun Fact: The young designer had an in-town gig as a watch engraver early in his life).

But Le Corbusier’s achievements, guidelines, and influences are evident everywhere, from urban planning and architecture to furnishings and decor.

Minimalism, materials, modernity, and, more specifically for this discussion, color are the watchwords for the designer and architect (although, like contemporaries Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, he lacked formal architectural training – perhaps a good thing in terms of rule-breaking).

So, that aspect of color and color theory, amid many other Le Corbusier influences, informs three new True Round timepieces from artful, always design-forward watchmaker Rado. Let’s take a look.

In collaboration with Les Couleurs Suisse, the organization sanctioned by the architect’s foundation to share his important architectural system of color theory guidance (offered in the form of 63 precisely matched shades from a body of his work called “Polychromie Architecturale”), Rado presents the saturated chromatic possibilities of ceramic construction, along with a some telling Le Corbusier “easter eggs” of inspiration.

While 12 previous Rado timepieces have tapped into these influences, this trio draws more direct lines to Le Corbusier’s spirit and maxims, going well beyond the refreshing colorways we saw over the summer in the rectangular Rado Anatom.
 

All three are based on the Rado calibre R763 automatic movement, feature consistent 40mm case sizing and bracelets, and use integrated colors, not coatings or finishes, produced through Rado’s proprietary sintering process (at extreme temperatures up to 1,450 Centigrade), so the color saturation is imbued throughout each component.

La Cité Radieuse (“The Radiant City”) was a vast, concrete apartment complex designed by Le Corbusier, completed in 1952, that may have single-handedly recast the idea of urban living into both a more practical and a more beautifully abstract sphere. The UNESCO World Heritage Site is just kind of hiding in plain sight in Marseille’s cityscape, but even today, it looks like a living plan for the future.

The first new True Round x Les Couleurs Le Corbusier Special Edition (Ref. R27049012) picks up the particularly organic Ivory White hue (reference color 4320B in the Polychromie Artchitecturale system) in its monobloc ceramic case and bracelet with a an equally ivory color for its dial, which constitutes a modern, abstract, laser-engraved interpretation of the raw, rough-cast, béton-brut construction materials used in the buildings.
 

Three Le Corbusier-approved shades of blue add chromatic interest for the three hands riding above the artful, index-less dial.

The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, completed in 1963, was the only building project Le Corbusier designed in North America, but it provided some dramatic, clean, forward-looking zeitgeist for Harvard University’s typical scholarly Georgian campus and leafy green spots.

Second, in the new True Round x Les Couleurs Le Corbusier Special Edition (Ref. R27048162) execution, tones of Iron Grey (Le Corbusier color 3210, if you are counting) lend a somewhat metallic, structural, brutalist tone to the timepiece’s case and bracelet. More laser-engraved abstraction adorns the ceramic dial, honoring the original structure’s molded concrete façade.
 

In this case, a trio of sanctioned hand hues (officially named Cream White, Powerful Orange, and Slightly Grey English Green) provides contrast to soften the imposing architectural influences.

Bear with me on this, but the most strikingly polychromatic of the new True Round models is also its most predominantly monochromatic, at least in spirit.

Inspired by what arguably was Le Corbusier’s most ambitious undertaking, the design of the city of Chandigarh, India, as a new capital for the Punjab region from 1951 to 1965, the design of the third watch of the trio (Ref. R27111162) certainly speaks to a more epic design language for the new collection.
 

A flowing wash of Matte Ivory Black (color 4320E in the color system) for the case and bracelet gives way to another artful, dark dial interpretation, this time harkening back to the construction of the city’s foundational Palace of Assembly, a governmental building. To get back to my first point, more brilliant colors in sanctioned shades of orange and green pop the hands off the black monolith of the case and dial in a more rainbow-like fashion than its siblings.

If you are finding the references here to colors from the “Polychromie Architecturale” guidelines more intriguing than annoying, boy, are you in luck. Each timepiece’s caseback not only offers an ample view of the 80-hour power-reserve Rado calibre R763 automatic movement and provides special-edition badging, but also showcases all 63 Les Coleurs Suisse colors around the caseback frame in all their architecturally harmonious glory.
 

The trio lists for $2,800 each; as special editions, there was no production ceiling listed at press time.

You can learn more by visiting the Rado website.