MAXIMILIAN BÜSSER AND THE MB&F HM12: A MACHINE AT THE THRESHOLD

The MB&F HM12 begins not with a plan, but with a question: wouldn’t it be cool if? That instinct has long sat at the centre of MB&F and its Horological Machines, yet here it feels especially concentrated. Conceived from an early sketch of a robot with a watch for a head, HM12 did not arrive through a linear strategy, nor through a tidy continuation of what came before. It emerged through doubt, revision, argument, play, and the refusal to release anything that had not yet become fully convincing.

For Maximilian Büsser, the HM12 is less an object than a record of becoming. It gathers the childhood charge of robots, the theatricality of mechanical interaction, the battle-axe rotor, the familiar lugs on the wrist, and the instinctive language of MB&F’s most sculptural creations. But its deeper significance lies in how it was made.

Developed with Max Maertens, it captures a creative relationship in transition: one Max pushing, the other resisting, refining, returning a month later with a sharper answer. What began as mentorship is becoming something more reciprocal, and perhaps more important—the early shape of MB&F after its first 20 years.

That makes the HM12 a threshold. It looks back without becoming nostalgic, drawing from the old friendships, symbols, and impulses that have defined MB&F since its beginning. Yet it also looks forward, towards a third decade in which authorship is no longer centred on a single voice. The creation is animated by the same unease that has always made the Horological Machines compelling: the sense that they are not designed so much as discovered, slowly, through the courage to keep asking whether they are strange enough, alive enough, and honest enough to exist.

During a recent trip to Singapore, we had the opportunity to speak with Max Büsser about his pre-launch of the HM12 and how it is a celebration of all things MB&F over the last two decades.

We're going to be talking about the HM12 today. Looking at the lineage of all the HMs, from HM1 and all the way to HM11, where would you place HM12 in this lineage?

MAX: There is no strategy when we create the Horological Machines (HM), and there is no direct link from one to the other. Now, there may be stories that we continued, like the car design stories where we've done four, but in this case, it all started in 2020. We had a consultant lead a round table with the exec team. We had just come out of COVID in late 2020, and he made us say, "So what is your dream? What would you like to see MB&F in 10 years?" So we had to talk about all sorts of things, and one of them, of course, was products.

And I remember the many things I sketched at that moment. There was a robot whose head was a watch. And I vividly remember that, amongst other things, virtually everything has either come out or is going to come out. And I kept that until late 2021, a year later, I asked Max Maertens if he wanted to do a project on that. And he's like, "Oh yeah, super cool." And you see in our presentation, you see the drawings, and it's important to show those drawings because what I realised is that... (pauses) you've done the tour of the M.A.D. House, have you done it in Geneva?

Not physically, but virtually, I've done it many times.

MAX: Exactly. So in my office, I have on the wall a certain number of drawings from the initiation to the end of Bulldog. And you have my very first sketch, and then you've got all the designs, drawings, and all sorts of things. And what I tell people is that when I explain that whole process, they feel that it's completely normal that the HM10 ends up the way it is. When you look at it, you're like, "Yeah, when I see the first drawing and see how it worked, it makes sense." But when we started, we had no idea that we were going to end up there. So it's the same thing with the HM12. It was going to be a robot—more of a Transformer robot with a head—but you can go in all sorts of directions. And hence those drawings you see, where initially it was just a base idea of a Gundam or a Transformers robot, and then you're like, "Okay, how am I going to make this work? How am I going to machine this?" And then you get into technical issues where you're like, "Actually, we've simplified too much, now we have to go more complicated." And when I look at all those drawings, it more or less makes sense, but when we start, we don't know we're going to end up there. We have no idea.

So every one of these projects is a journey of self-discovery, because we start with an idea, "Wouldn't it be cool if... ?" And then, specifically on that project, we kept wanting to make it cooler. So we kept on adding and changing things, and we even changed the shape and design of the case, which I'm going to say was 18 months ago. Then the technical team looked at us and was like, "You forgot it. You're not getting the watch for 2025. It's impossible," because the watch was going to be much more actually angular. And we felt like it makes sense on the robot, but on your wrist, it actually doesn't. But up till then, we thought it was cool. And there's a moment in a meeting where one or the other, usually me or Max, was like, "But actually, this is not a really nice watch on your wrist." So we had to change it, and then you see the whole technical team and Serge (Kriknoff) would go, "What? And you want this out in 12 months?" and we were like, "Yeah." "No, that's impossible."

What I love—and I think it's an important thing—we never compromise, especially on creativity. This means that if we don't love something to bits, we don't let it out. I mean, the Bulldog was one of them. If you look at my first sketch, it was back in September 2012, and it finally came out in March 2020; that's seven and a half years later. Is it seven years of R&D? No. But it just didn't feel right. We were changing a lot of stuff with it. And I think it's like a composer. There are the basics of how the structure of a piece of music is; there's your ear, but then there's a moment where you go, "Yeah, that's it." And I always remember, there's somebody I love listening to, it's Rick Rubin. You know who Rick Rubin is? He is a legendary music producer. He's got this monster beard, and he looks like a guru. He has produced some of the most iconic pieces of music since the '60s and '70s. There's an interview with him where they're like, "So what's your secret? Because he's done country music to rap, to rock, he's done multiple genres, and when he produces an artist, there's always some incredible pieces coming out. Well, he says, "Look. I can't play music, I can't play an instrument, I can't compose music, but I think I've got two assets." He says, "I know what I like, and I make decisions."

And I listened to that a couple of years ago, and I thought, "That's pretty much it." The difference is he's just judging other people's work; it's my work by working with other people, but there's this moment where you go, "Yeah, that's it." And what's very interesting with Max Maertens is that we seem to be pretty much aligned, which is very weird, but I don't actually think he's being polite. Because when I go, "Hmm, it doesn't feel right," even though he's done it, he listens to me, and he goes, "You're right, it's not right." I'm there like, "It needs a bit more of that, it's not crazy enough, or there's missing an angle there." And then he'll work out, and then sometimes I'm like, "Oh, that's cool. Okay, let's do it." He says, "Okay." And then a month later, he came back, he says, "I've been thinking, it's actually not okay. It would be better if it were like that." And like, "Yeah, you're right, it would be better if it were like that." So we're pushing each other, which is making our projects a lot longer, but we keep on pushing each other. Before, I was all alone. "That's it, it's done. Okay, let's go on to the next." Anyway, sorry, that's not at all answering your questions, but it's an interesting insight into how we work.

At what point do you decide that Max Maertens is ready to take on a whole Horological Machines project? Because before that, he was doing things with the M.A.D. Gallery, but he has not touched the core universe, which is the LM and the HM.

MAX: The first watch I gave him as an option was a M.A.D. Edition, so I didn't start him on MB&F. It's interesting because we have young engineers who start on M.A.D. Edition, and then at some point, they can graduate to MB&F because that is a whole different story. One day, instead of doing clocks, pencil sharpeners, and music boxes, I said, "You want to come up with a M.A.D. Edition?" And he was like, "Wow, wow! Yeah, sure, sure!" He says, "Nobody's ever asked me to do a watch. I've been working for you for years, and I never would have dared," and I'm like, "Okay, go for it, but it has to be your idea."

He came out with several really cool projects. I saw that he had it in him to create a M.A.D. Edition and with M.A.D., you've got very little latitude in movement. You have to use a round industrial movement; you can do a little module around it, but at 2,900 francs, you're not going to do an HM12 clearly. From there onwards, he was already working on HM12, but under my supervision and with my original idea. Then I asked him if he wanted to come up with a M.A.D. Edition, he came up with a couple of really cool pieces, so M.A.D. 4 is (normally) his. Then one day I said, "Do you want to invent an MB&F?" He was like, "Wow, the Grail! Yes!" He came out with HM13 and HM14, all in parallel.

Because Max is typically associated with a Stephen McDonnell who is an engineer—I mean, he's not an engineer—but he engineers movements. Stephen is sequential: he has to finish a movement first before he can start on another one. Max is, all the time, on six different projects, which have nothing to do with one another, and he basically compartmentalises in his brain. Then he came up with some really cool HMs, really cool, and virtually all of them were impossible to develop or manufacture, but they were cool. I mean, they were things I wouldn't even have thought of. I was like, "Wow, this is super cool." And so from there onwards... so you'll see HM13 is 100 per cent his and so is HM14.

So he actually started working on HM13 and HM14? Before, you said, "Okay, you can also take on HM12."

MAX: No, no. HM12 was late 2021, and that was five years ago. He was working on that based on my idea, and then I said, "If you have your own ideas. Go on the M.A.D. Edition, and then bring your own ideas on MB&F." It's always been my ideas, and with Eric Giroud, we work it out. Even on the clocks with Max, the T-Rex was my idea; even the pencil sharpener was mine. The Tripod and the Orb are Max's ideas. He came up with some ideas on clocks, then we worked on HM12—that was a long process—and in the middle of all that, I asked him if he wanted to do a M.A.D. Edition. He came up with a few ideas, and then I asked him if he wanted to do a Legacy Machine (LM). He would come from time to time with some ideas of LMs, but LMs are very much movement-linked.

Typically, it would be Stephen's or anybody else's, but I mean, it's the idea of the movement, which then we create a cool LM case around it. Special Projects (SP), on the other hand, SP2 is my idea, and SP3 is 100 per cent Max's idea. So that's interesting when he comes up with something, and I'm like, "Whoa!" and it's not an HM, it's not an LM. Okay, SP3. There you go, SP is the most beautiful gift—at least to us, the creative part of the company—we gave ourselves for the 20th anniversary. Because it's called Special Projects, we can do anything we want. For our 20th anniversary, we've suddenly given ourselves the gift of taking out all boundaries. It has to be mechanical, it has to be crazy, amazing, super well done, beautifully made, whatever, but it can be anything.

Talking about boundaries, you say that the HM12 doesn't fit into the HM series, nor does it fit into LM, so you put it into the SPs. But I see that it does blur the lines of the HM12 as well. You say the front is more of the HM, the back is more LM...

MAX: Because it was supposed to be the 20th anniversary piece. As it was supposed to be the 20th anniversary piece and therefore embody everything that we've been worked on, and now it's the beginning of the third decade, so it's embodying everything which is the 20 years of history, and then we close that chapter. That was that. So that's why we did, but going forward, that's not how we see HMs or LMs. I mean, it's not about blurring boundaries. On that particular piece, it was worthwhile.

Okay, because I was going to ask whether you still have a definition of what HM should be, because of the blurring of the lines?

MAX: Yeah, no. For us, it's a 3D kinetic art piece which is based on an idea, a story, or a concept. It's never just a design; it's not just a shape. There's always a whole story behind it. So HM13 and HM14 have got really cool stories behind them.

Since you say the HM12 is a celebration of all things MB&F over the last 20 years, can you bring us through some of the key elements that were brought in from the old projects?

MAX: First of all, it's a 3D kinetic art piece. There is a story in this caseback to our childhoods, all of our childhoods, because we've all, at some point in our lives, been influenced by robots. For me, it was the older generation robots and for Max Maertens, it was the more recent times with Transformers. It's a journey back to revisit part of our lives. I've often said that the HMs are our psychotherapy, and that's very important. From there onwards, you've got all these elements like working with old friends such as Kari (Voutilainen) and L'Epée 1839. You have the symbols like the battle-axe rotor, all the different lugs and the way it rests on your wrist; that's very much where HM4 got started with.

There's this sense of play, and I think it's very important we interact with our watches. The HM11 was a fantastic piece where you turn your house around to wind the watch whilst you're looking at different rooms. For the HM12, you play with the shields; you can also play with it by putting the watch onto the robot and then taking it off. There is continuously interactions, and that's what I would like the HMs to be about. You interact with them.

For long-time MB&F followers like myself, will we still see a fully Max-focused HM or LM in the future?

MAX: No, because everything is now being worked on by Max. Even projects like SP2, which I started alone with Eric, Max has now slowly taken over and made it way more extreme than we had originally planned and pushed the boundaries on a certain number of elements. Slowly, he has taken over. Originally, it was I mentoring him, and now I will slowly start to become a consultant for him. And that's the way it should be. Otherwise, how can he grow and take responsibility if you've always got a boss who's very opinionated and telling you what to do? It's pointless, he's never going to be able to grow. This third decade is very much that decade. It's not innocent that I'm turning 60 in a few months, and that I've got this perception that from 60 to 70 is the last 10 years where I hopefully will still be in great shape. I want to make the best of those 10 years as a father, a husband, and a creator. I did my very first New Year's resolution at December last year.

I never do that, and I always think it's completely naff. I told my wife, who was very surprised. I told Tiffany, "I'm going to have a New Year's resolution." "Hmm?" I said, "I realised that for the last 30 years, I've spent 90 per cent of my time doing stuff I don't enjoy. I really dislike sometimes, I really suck at, but I've done all of those things to have those 10 per cent, which were the dream." And that was the price to pay to have MB&F where it is, or originally even just surviving. I have always been like that; my father was like that. You first do what you have to before you do what you want to. And I was like, "You know what? If those 10 per cent of what I love over the years to come became 30 to 40 per cent? That's my goal." Not 90, but I would like to do less of the stuff I really don't like doing and do more of what I enjoy. And what I enjoy is, of course, creating, co-creating, connecting, learning, and taking risks. All the rest is the necessary evil to allow those things to be able to blossom.