Little watchmakers filled the afternoon at the Medeiros e Almeida Museum

On Saturday, 10 October, World Watch Day, the Instituto Português de Relojoaria took “O Tempo que nos Liga: Oficina de Pequenos Relojoeiros” (The Time that Binds Us: Little Watchmakers' Workshop) to the Medeiros e Almeida Museum in Lisbon, as part of Festival Conecta – O Nosso Bairro, organised by the Automóvel Club de Portugal. From 2 pm to 7 pm we had our hands full, with children eager to learn watchmaking.

An afternoon with our hands full

For five hours, the workshop table, set up in one of the Museum's tiled rooms, never had a moment's rest. The children sat down and got to work: opening the box, sorting the parts, finding out what each one is and building a clock that works.

They arrived wanting to learn, and that is what the workshop is for: showing, parts in hand, how a clock works.

A clock to build, with the right names

Each child was given a clock to assemble: a mechanical table clock with a transparent case, wheels in several colours, a pendulum and a bell that rings. Everything that is usually hidden inside a clock is in plain view.

The clock came with the “Monta o teu relógio” (Build your clock) instructions, written by the IPR in Portuguese and with the correct terms. By following the steps, the children could learn the name of every component, what each one does and which organ of the clock it belongs to: the power source, the transmission, the escapement and the oscillator. The wheels, for example, stop being “the red one” or “the blue one” and become the centre wheel, the third wheel and the escape wheel.

The name of each component, its function and the organ it belongs to: real watchmaking, in Portuguese, within a child's reach.

Assembly is done step by step and in pairs, so that one child helps another.

The Almanaque do Tempo

Each participant also received the Almanaque do Tempo (Almanac of Time), a 24-page booklet made by the IPR for young readers. It is full of challenges, from paper fortune tellers to cut out and fold to word searches and crosswords, alongside stories from the history of watchmaking and places linked to clocks and watches that can be visited in Portugal.

The paper fortune teller is the folded-paper game everyone knows from the playground. Here, instead of loose colours and numbers, it shows parts of the clock — the bell, the hands, the dial — and the questions are about the assembly and about how clocks work.

Young and old

The activity went very well and was warmly received by children and grown-ups alike. That was the meaning of the workshop's name: watchmaking as a meeting point between generations.

An activity that went very well, warmly received by children and grown-ups alike.

Festival Conecta and the Museum

The workshop was a joint proposal by the IPR and the Medeiros e Almeida Museum and was part of Festival Conecta – O Nosso Bairro, which the ACP – Automóvel Club de Portugal held in Lisbon on 9 and 10 October. Over two days, institutions, associations, cultural venues, local shops and residents of the same part of the city came together in a programme of culture, health, learning, participation, solidarity and conviviality.

It would be hard to find a better home for a watchmaking workshop. At the Medeiros e Almeida Museum, clocks and watches are one of the collections with a room of their own, and among the Museum's pieces is a Breguet pocket watch ordered by General Junot that ended up in the hands of the Duke of Wellington. The Museum's programme for the Festival also included guided tours and the activity “Na Casa da minha Avó” (At my Grandmother's House).

Thank you

The IPR thanks the ACP – Automóvel Club de Portugal and the Medeiros e Almeida Museum, with which it joined forces through Festival Conecta. We also thank all the children and families who spent the afternoon with us.

Coming up

We will meet again soon: Tempo Passado, the vintage watch fair, takes place on Saturday, 28 November, at the Jupiter Hotel, and Tempo Futuro, the independent watchmaking fair, returns to the Medeiros e Almeida Museum on Saturday, 19 December.

The IPR runs watchmaking workshops for individuals and companies. For more information: info@institutoportuguesderelojoaria.pt.