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Concept
Le Locle
Summary
Le Locle (lə lɔkl; Luggli) is a municipality in the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.
It is situated in the Jura Mountains, a few kilometers from the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds.
It is the third smallest city in Switzerland (in Switzerland a place needs more than 10,000 inhabitants to be considered a city).
Le Locle is known as a center of Swiss watchmaking, even cited as the birthplace of the industry, with roots dating back to the 1600s. The municipality has been home to manufactures such as Favre-Leuba, Mido, Zodiac, Tissot, Ulysse Nardin, Zenith, Montblanc, Certina as well as Universal Genève, before the latter company relocated to Geneva. The town's history in watchmaking is documented at one of the world's premier horological museums, the Musée d'Horlogerie du Locle, Monts Castle, located in a 19th-century country manor on a hill north of the city. Restored historic underground mills (grainmill, oilmill, sawmill) can be seen in a cave located about one kilometer () west of the city center.
The name of the town derives from the word for lake or trou d'eau.
Le Locle, as well as La Chaux-de-Fonds, owes its 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, the micro-mechanical industry was added.
The watchmaking cities of Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds have jointly received recognition from UNESCO for their exceptional universal value.
Due to the altitude (around ) and the lack of water (porous limestone 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.
Official source
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