IWC Schaffhausen at Milan Design Week 2026
Engineering the Invisible
Time has no shape, no weight, no colour. Yet for over 150 years, IWC Schaffhausen has been giving it form – through mechanical engineering and materials that push the boundaries of what is possible. For Milan Design Week 2026, we bring this philosophy to life in the heart of Milan.
At our Via Montenapoleone boutique, IWC Schaffhausen presents “Engineering the Invisible” – a site-specific installation created in collaboration with Italian artist Andrea Crespi. Through a striking black-and-white optical work, Crespi transforms the boutique into a space where art, design, and watchmaking converge. A message hidden in the interplay of light and contrast, visible only when you look closely, captures the very paradox at the heart of watchmaking: making the intangible tangible.
At the centre of the exhibition stand two timepieces that embody this tension between visibility and invisibility in the most literal sense. The Portugieser Chronograph in Ceratanium®, an IWC-developed material with a stealthy and dark metallic finish, retreats into darkness: its Ceratanium® case, black dial, and black rubber strap absorb light rather than reflect it, rendering the watch as close to invisible as a timepiece can be. The Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Ceralume® occupies the opposite extreme. Crafted from IWC’s proprietary luminous ceramic, it glows for hours with intensity – even in complete darkness. One watch disappears, the other refuses to. Together, they define what it means to engineer the invisible.
Engineering the Invisible is on view at IWC Schaffhausen, Via Montenapoleone, Milan, during Milan Design Week 2026 and till the end of April. We invite you to visit, to look beyond the surface, and to experience time and space differently.
About the Artist
Andrea Crespi is one of the leading figures of the new Italian contemporary art scene, whose practice explores the boundary between the visible and the invisible, the physical and the digital. Working across media, he translates cultural shifts and the impact of the digital revolution into essential visual forms – stripping away the superfluous to reveal what is fundamental. This principle, which Crespi defines as "Neosynthesis," underpins a body of work that moves between optical illusion, perception, and the nature of reality.
His work has been exhibited at prominent institutions and contexts worldwide, including the Triennale di Milano, the CAFA Art Museum in Beijing, Times Square in New York, and Art Dubai. For Milan Design Week 2026, Crespi collaborated with IWC Schaffhausen on Engineering the Invisible, a site-specific installation interpreting the Maison's philosophy through his visual and conceptual language.