Manufacture d'horlogerie: A. Lange & Söhne

Manufacture d'horlogerie. Manufacture d'horlogerie is a term reserved for watch manufactuers that make all or most of the parts required for their movements in their own production facilities as opposed to assembling watches using parts purchased from other firms. For reasons of their in-house expertize companies classified as manufacture d'horlogerie are generally considered to be the elite of the watch making industry.

Creating the watch capital of Germany. A. Lange & Söhne was founded in 1845 by Ferdinand Lange in Glashütte, State of Saxony. This was the first production facility for pocket watches in the than impoverished  town of Glashütte. Ferdinand Lange started by training 15 watchmakers.  By the time of his death, in 1875, Ferdinand Adolph Lange had made Glashütte the watch manufacturing capital of Germany. 

During World War II arial bombardment decimated its workshops. After the war, what was left of the company's property was expropriated the post-war socialist regime in 1948. With this, the A. Lange & Söhne brand ceased to exist. Fourth-generation Walter Lange fled to the west with the communist takeover of East Germany.

In 1989, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the East German government, Adolph Lange's great-grandson, Walter Lange, sought to reestablish the company. A year later, with the help of IWC and the Richemont Group, A. Lange & Söhne reopened its doors in the city of Glashütte. Instead of using other manufacturers movements in their watches, and rushing to production, A. Lange & Söhne went back to its roots as a manufacture d'horlogerie and set about creating its own movements and so it was not until 1994 that the new generation of A. Lange & Söhne watches appeared.

Distinctively German. Since re-opening its doors A. Lange & Söhne has began creating its niche by creating watches tend to have a highly distinctive appearance. A double window containing oversized digits for the date and an asymmetric layout for the hands in the dial are common features on A. Lange & Söhne watches.

The Lange 1 with its asymmetric layout with no overlap among its key components (a dial containing the hour and minute hands, a smaller dial containing the second hand) and double window containing oversized digits is distinctively a A. Lange & Söhne creation.