Inside Audemars Piguet’s Singapore Exhibition: Beyond the Royal Oak

Audemars Piguet will bring watches from its museum in Le Brassus to Singapore from 10 to 13 September 2026 for Perspectives on Time, a four-room exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore. The presentation combines archival and contemporary pieces, with a number of historical watches being shown in Singapore for the first time.

For collectors, the more useful aspect is what the exhibition covers beyond the Royal Oak. Audemars Piguet has not yet published a complete public object list with references and production dates, so individual museum watches should not be identified before the manufacture confirms them. What has been disclosed is the structure of the exhibition.

Looking Back and Beyond traces the manufacture from its beginnings in Le Brassus in 1875. Guided by the Cosmos concentrates on astronomical complications, including calendar mechanisms, with a live demonstration. The Beauty Within examines openworking through vintage and contemporary watches, while Crafting the Future: Giving Time a Voice turns to chiming mechanisms and includes a demonstration allowing visitors to hear one in operation.

These subjects place the Royal Oak, introduced in 1972, relatively late in the company's history. Audemars Piguet says astronomical calendar watches have formed part of its work since 1875 and that Grande Complication production dates to 1882. In 1892, the manufacture worked with Louis Brandt & Frères on a minute-repeating wristwatch, while the 1899 Universelle pocket watch combined 26 functions, including 19 complications. The Universelle is now a centrepiece of the Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet, although it has not been confirmed for the Singapore exhibition.

Openworking has a similarly long lineage. Audemars Piguet records that the technique was practised by the manufacture in the 1930s and 1950s before being revived more extensively after the quartz crisis.

That historical range is what makes Perspectives on Time relevant to collectors. It positions Audemars Piguet not simply through its most recognisable sports watch, but through the complications and movement disciplines that preceded it.

The exhibition runs daily from 10.30am to 6pm at The Gallery Theatre, National Museum of Singapore, 93 Stamford Road. Admission is free, visits are organised in 30-minute sessions, and advance registration is encouraged. Walk-ins are accepted subject to availability. An official Audemars Piguet booking portal is currently live.