The Watchmaking Towns of La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle

Two towns in the Neuchatel Jura were rebuilt as machines for making watches. After fire destroyed La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1794 the place was laid out again on a grid of long parallel streets running with the valley, wide enough and oriented so that daylight reached the upper-floor workshops where the work was done at home. Le Locle, seven kilometres down the line, followed the same logic. There are no grand squares and no medieval core, only rank after rank of blocks with tall windows, which is exactly why UNESCO listed the pair for their town planning in 2009. The craft survives too: mechanical watchmaking is recognised as a living tradition and the industry still runs here.

What you actually see

• A grid built for daylight - parallel blocks aligned so light reached the long ranks of workshop windows upstairs.
• Art nouveau details - decorated doorways and stairwells from the industry's boom years.
• Le Corbusier's first houses - the architect was born here and built early villas in the town.
• Le Locle - the smaller twin, laid out to the same plan down the valley.

When to go

Any month, though the valley lies above a thousand metres and winter brings deep cold and snow that stays. Summer and early autumn are best for walking the grid and seeing the Jura pastures around it. Guided architectural walks run mainly in the warm season, need booking and make the grid much easier to understand; the Le Corbusier houses open only on limited days.

Honest expectations

This is a working industrial town and the heritage here is town planning, not scenery, so anyone arriving expecting a Swiss postcard will be disappointed within ten minutes. The grid is repetitive and grey under cloud, and some blocks are shabby. Most watch factories are closed to visitors, and the key Corbusier houses open only on set days by reservation. Without a guide or the museum, the point of the layout is easy to miss completely.

Nearby

The horology museum is in the town, the Doubs river gorge lies north of it, and the Jura ridges have walking routes above both towns.