The Dazzling Scenography of Watches and Wonders Geneva 2026

Roughly 60,000 visitors are expected to attend this year’s Watches and Wonders Geneva, the preeminent international trade show for luxury timepieces and other sought-after splendors, running now through April 20. Though the term wonders acts as an illustrative catchall—and includes everything from gem-set automatons to sculptural time-telling machines, Formula One cars, and even a lunar rover from Astrolab—one of the most wondrous elements every year happens to be the transportive buildouts within which each brand presents its new (and archival) pieces. These are not standard exhibition center booths, but richly imagined environments—and this year, Van Cleef & Arpels, Hermès, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and Audemars Piguet built entire worlds.

This year, Van Cleef & Arpels themed its installation “Poetry of the Heavens,” an apt title for a colorful corner embellished with a Murano glass constellation chandelier, above a glass pond, surrounded by metal guilloché trees with glass leaves. Ceramic enamel flowers also dot the interior landscape. The French fine jewelry and haute horloger even clad the walls in tapestry composed of gold thread.

Nearby, Hermès installed a towering work by French artist Jean-Simon Roch, named “Mysterious Mechanics,” that acts as both the stage (for watches) and the theatrical production itself. In essence, a room-sized wooden automaton, the kinetic sculpture’s rope-and-pulley system stays in motion, readjusting a series of panels that reveal an ode to Gianpaolo Pagni’s horse motif. Of course, it also embeds vitrines with three new skeletonized timepieces: Hermès H08 Squelette, Arceau Samarcande, and Slim d’Hermès Squelette Lune.

“The inspiration came from Pierre-Alexis Dumas, the artistic director of Hermès, who saw in watches a small world,” Roch tells Surface. “As our objective was to talk about the skeletonized watches, we drew a parallel between an open-worked watch and a theater where the backstage and all its mechanisms are visible.” Roch partnered with set designers and carpenters, and also studied the history of stage design in antique books; it was through technical drawings in the latter that he uncovered the apparatus he built into the Hermès spectacle.

A cycling seven-minute score was developed with Pierre Ronin. “The watches are part of the theater, so we used all the mechanism sounds we could,” the composer says. “The soundtrack symbolizes a day. We start with the sunrise, with soft sounds, then it’s ballet and mechanical sounds. At the end of the day, there is a crazy minute where the sound [and light] switch.” This is actually when the machine rewinds.

An Alpine utopia greets guests arriving at Jaeger-LeCoultre’s booth, this year themed “The Valley of Inventions” as an ode to the watch manufacture’s wintry home in the Vallée de Joux. The centerpiece: Michel Amann’s four-meter-tall pine tree installation, named “The Sentinel of Invention,” is composed of six tons of ice. Scent, sound, and gusts of wind enhance the experience. Directly behind it, Swiss chef Gilles Varone helmed a gastronomic experience—focused this year on cheese—within the installation’s restaurant, Le Chalet. Live watchmaking demonstrations and fifteen extraordinary new timepieces also punctuated the site.

Audemars Piguet is making its Watches and Wonders Geneva debut this year. To celebrate the participation, the manufacture constructed a monumental House of Wonders on site—an invitation for all who enter to bask in a balance of heritage and innovation. Beyond the facade, a series of immersive spaces hone in on techniques, designs, and innovations all oriented toward demonstrating the artistry behind mechanical watchmaking. The concluding space pairs five generations of Research and Development breakthroughs opposite the brand’s new Atelier des Établisseurs, an ode to its origins.

Complementary to this installation, Audemars Piguet has also developed a dedicated AP Lab at the Pont de la Machine in Geneva. This activation, part of its “In the City” program, will remain open to the public through June 28. Within, watchmaking knowledge is shared through thematic rooms, games, and hands-on activities in a thoughtfully designed immersive space.