Since December 16th 2020, UNESCO has registered the craftsmanship of mechanical watchmaking and art mechanics on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It promotes an emblematic living tradition from the Jura Arc area along the Franco-Swiss border. UNESCO considered the application as outstanding, as it raises awareness of the importance of intangible cultural heritage in a cross-border area.

The craftsmanship of mechanical watchmaking and art mechanics includes the traditional craftsmanship of watchmaking in the Jura Ar; it includes as well as the production of mechanical automata and music boxes. These skills, at the crossroads between science, art and technology, bring together individual and collective, as well as theoretical and practical knowledge in the fields of mechanics and micromechanics. This border region between France and Switzerland is home to a wide range of craftsmen, businesses, training institutions, museums and associations that promote and transmit these techniques that require the human’s hands.

Those highly skilled techniques combine tradition and innovation. While watchmaking and art mechanics play a primarily economic role, they have also shaped the architecture, urban landscape, and everyday life of these regions. The recognition of these skills also highlights the complementarity and continuity between tangible and intangible heritage, with the site of La Chaux-de-Fonds/Le Locle having been inscribed as a World Heritage Site of Watchmaking Town Planning in 2009.