Le Locle - Unesco World Heritage Sites

Unesco World Heritage Sites

Both towns owe their survival to the manufacturing and exports of watches. The industry of watch making was brought to Le Locle in the 17th century by Daniel JeanRichard, a self taught watchmaker who encouraged the farmers of the area to start manufacturing watch components for him during the long winters. In the 20th century was added the minute micro mechanical industry.

The watchmaking cities of Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds have jointly received recognition from UNESCO for their exceptional universal value.

The Site's planning consists of two small cities located close to each other in the mountainous environment of the Swiss Jura. Due to the altitude (around 1,000 m (3,300 ft)) and the lack of water (porous sandstone underground) the land is ill suited to farming. Planning and buildings reflect the watch making artisans need for rational organization. They were rebuilt in the early 19th Century, after extensive fires.

Along an open-ended scheme of parallel strips on which residential housing and workshops intermingle, their town planning reflects the needs of the local watch-making culture that dates back to the 17th century, and which is still alive today. Both agglomerations present outstanding examples of mono-industrial manufacturing-towns, which are still well-preserved and active. Their urban planning has accommodated the transition from the artisans’ production of a cottage industry to the more concentrated factory production of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Already Karl Marx described La Chaux-de-Fonds as a “huge factory-town” in Das Kapital, where he analyzed the division of labour in the watch making industry of the Jura.

It is the tenth Swiss site to be awarded World Heritage status, joining others such as the Old City of Bern, the Rhaetian Railway and the Abbey and Convent of St. Gallen.