The mechanism and decoration of the cuckoo have always been emblematic of the precise and meticulous work associated with the image of Swiss savoir-faire. Originally, cuckoo clocks evoked the delightful simplicity of an idealized alpine life preserved from the hazards of progress.

A Swiss emblem, it’s not by chance that Harry Lime, played by Orson Welles in The Third Man, refers to the cuckoo clock when he critically comments: “Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Today in a world governed by the laws of the market, in a society where design plays equally with art, what is left of the Swiss cuckoo?

Invited by Jean-Pierre Greff, director of HEAD – Genève, Swiss designer working between Europe and Asia, Claudio Colucci, has challenged the students to reinvent this iconic timepiece on a contemporary mode. The students had to give a new contemporary take while following an underlying principle: to uphold the necessary high standards of the traditional cuckoo clock and to tell the hours with a repeated song.

Students came up with the most radical and innovative ideas, opening the way to ingenious, interactive, precious, avant-garde and beautiful projects. Ranging from media design to jewelry design, from the horological object to technological immateriality, each clock has its own particular music.

Alongside these young creators, professors from HEAD – Genève, world-renown designers, were invited to design their own cuckoo clocks, including James Auger (Cuckoo), Marco Borraccino (Fatbird Clock), Claudio Colucci (Voyages extraordinaires), matali crasset (Coucou Time), Nitzan Cohen (Cuckoo) et Camille Scherrer (Follow the Birds).