{July 2013} The urban designer Pierre Koukjian, also known as an artist and sculptor, sees everything in double. Because none of his clients would purchase his Bichrono model, he created it on his own. The deLaCour brand, champion of the ‘Since Tomorrow’ is born, and its icon has entered the Museum 10 years later.
L’une des toutes premières Bichrono désignée par Pierre Koukjian fait entrer la marque deLaCour au Musée d’horlogerie de Genève
A public museum must have a foot in the present, a strong link with contemporary creators and the actors of the surrounding industrial tissue. Indeed, these contribute to give relief to the treasures of the past and, because History is continuously in motion, deserve to be an essential part of the patrimony.
On June 24, 2013, at a party held in the brand’s showroom opened in 2005, somewhere between the Geneva hotels Beau-Rivage and Richemond, Pierre Koukjian, co-founder of the deLaCour brand, and its Office Manager, Esteban Salmon, welcomed Estelle Fallet, head curator of the watch, enamelware, jewelry and miniature collections and head of the Geneva’s History Department. This convivial ceremony included the donation of a Bichrono model from the very first series produced by deLaCour. Launched in 2003 at BaselWorld and awarded the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix six months later, this wristwatch, the first to feature a double automatic chronograph movement, has become the brand’s emblematic symbol and its favorite field of conjugation.
Chief editor & publisher of the international watch magazine "Swiss Watch Passport® (by JSH®)" and of the Journal Suisse d'Horlogerie JSH® (the oldest Swiss Watch Journal founded in 1876). Member of Impressum, PressTourim and Club Suisse de la Presse, this Ivory Coast-born Swiss, descendant of a family of watchmakers, co-founded the magazines Montres Passion & Uhren Welt at Ringier in 1993 with Kenan Tegin, as well as the Prix Montre de l'Année. Founded in 2005, his press agency 1876 News (formerly TàG Press +41T) contributes to some twenty media through a network of around ten journalists or experts. These include Journal Suisse d'Horlogerie (2008-2014), Heure Suisse/Schweiz and Année Horlogère, F/D/E (2011-2014), Watchonista.com (2013-2019). In 2019, he founded and chaired "JSH Archives & Patrimoine" to relaunch the Swiss watchmaking journal JSH. Then in 2021, he built on his very first editorial venture, the "bloghorloger.ch" established on the web in 2003, to come back online with the Swiss Watch Passport® (by JSH®). Joël A. Grandjean is a member of the SSC, the Swiss Society of Chronometry, and of the jury of the Prix Gaïa, aka the "Nobel of watchmaking" awarded since 1992 by the MIH, Le Musée International de l'Horlogerie in La Chaux-de-Fonds
The work of a lifetime, the book "Le Cadran" by Dr. Helmut Crott (edited by Joël A. Grandjean), the history of the dial in the 20th century, the prestigious history of the Stern dials and of a family that took over the Patek Philippe brand
