Prix Gaïa 2018 – Reinhard Meis. History-Research category

Reinhard Meis was born in 1940 into a family of watchmakers, in Koppelow in northern Germany. He completed his apprenticeship as a watchmaker in Minden and Eutin and trained at the School of Watchmaking in Altona, Hamburg. He then began his career as a watchmaker in Eutin and Husum. At the age of 27, he specialised in precision mechanics in Schwenningen, before working with Siemens and Telefunken. From 1973 to 1991, Reinhard Meis was technical assistant to Prof. Bömmel and Prof. Dransfeld in the Faculty of Physics at the University of Konstanz, specialising in the field of solid-state physics. At the same time, he wrote the reference works Die alte Uhr, Taschenuhren, IWC-Uhren, Das Tourbillon", and Arm- banduhren Chronographen – which were translated into several languages – in addition to around sixty journal articles.
 

In 1991, Reinhard Meis became technical adviser and movement designer at Lange Uhren. He was the man behind the first collections from Lange & Söhne under the directorship of Günter Blümlein. He helped to create exhibitions for the brands Jaeger-LeCoultre, IWC and Lange & Söhne in the Les Manufactures Horlogères (LMH) group. At the same time, he invested his leisure time pursuing his activities as a researcher and author, notably publishing the books A. Lange & Söhne: eine Uhr- macherdynastie aus Dresden (1997) and A. Lange & Söhne, feine Uhren aus Sachsen. In 2004, he returned to the Richemont Movement Centre in Neuchâtel as engineering director for prod- uct design and fine watchmaking and as a consultant for the group's brands. Reinhard Meis has been enjoying his retirement since 2011, dedicating his time to his passion for writing.