The Swatch Group, the world’s largest watchmaker in April opened the Cité du Temps (“City of Time”) a 1,000-square-meter exhibition center in the heart of Geneva, traditional home of luxury watchmaking. The center will host a wide range of exhibitions and activities focused on time, timekeeping, and watchmaking.

On the ground floor two multipurpose performance and exhibition areas will showcase a continuing exploration of time and its diverse manifestations in art, industry, and culture. Visitors can “touch” time in its many facets, and even “design” a watch and enter the work in the “Swatch Watch of the Year” contest.

The first exhibits are devoted to Abraham-Louis Breguet, the father of watchmaking, and to Swatch-owned Nivarox-FAR, which produces key components for mechanical watches for most major Swiss luxury watchmakers.

On the second floor, there’s a permanent exhibition of Swatch watches, with representations by various artists and designers since 1982 (the year the Swatch watch was launched) until now.

A restaurant and lounge will be added later this year. The cost to the Swatch Group to convert the building, built in 1841, was about $7 million.

Swatch Group brands include Balmain, Blancpain, Breguet, Certina, ck watch & jewelry, Endura, Flik Flak, Glashütte Original, Hamilton, Jaquet Droz, Léon Hatot, Longines, Mido, Omega, Rado, Swatch, Tissot, and Union.