About The Ministry of Horological Affairs

The contemporary watch world moves at a remarkable pace. New releases appear weekly, dial colours multiply, and entire discussions unfold around shades of green, blue, or salmon. It fascinates me how easily the surface has become the centre — how the dial, once a discreet expression of design, now defines the story of a watch. There is beauty in that attention, of course, but also a risk: that we forget what lies beneath the hands, where craft and intellect still converge in quiet precision.

This is where The Ministry of Horological Affairs began — from a desire to slow things down, to write about watches as objects of thought rather than fashion. The name is intentionally playful. If such a ministry existed, it might regulate time itself, issue licences for curiosity, or perhaps protect the endangered species known as patience. Yet the phrase also carries a second meaning. Horology, for those of us who live within it, is not simply a profession or a pastime, it is an affair in the truest sense, a long and intricate relationship between maker, object, and observer.

I have spent years writing about this world, its workshops, its collectors, its histories, and I have come to see how much it mirrors our own times. The horological sphere is vibrant, inventive, and full of extraordinary people. Yet it also exists in a culture where visibility defines success. Many thrive in that landscape, and I admire their ease with it. My path is different. I am drawn to the quieter dimension of this craft: the archives, the engineering, the human stories that remind us why timekeeping became art in the first place.

The Ministry is therefore both a publication and a perspective. It is a place to think about horology with the respect it deserves, less as an accessory, more as a form of knowledge. Each essay or reflection here will aim to connect disciplines: design with philosophy, science with culture, the past with the present. I want to explore how these small machines, built to measure time, also shape our perception of it.

If the name sounds grand, that’s part of the humour. Every ministry needs its rituals, even if mine are made of words, ideas, and the occasional balance spring. Thank you for reading, and for joining me in this quiet experiment, an imagined department for the study of the real, the precise, and the deeply personal affairs we all have with time.

Welcome to The Ministry of Horological Affairs.

Carlos Torres