Seattle Everett Zürich

The House receives keepers by appointment, Tuesday to Saturday

Rosen The Rosen Association Seattle 1911
The Rosen Owl, front elevation on its perch and stand. An engraved drawing of a large owl with ear tufts and wide facial discs, gripping a turned perch. The stand carries a small plaque reading Replica. Dimensions give the bird’s height as 470 millimeters. REPLICA
Atelier drawing 214, 2019, revised 2024 The Rosen Owl, a replica, on its perch and stand.

Makers of lifelike machines Seattle, since 1911

Nothing leaves the House without its papers.

For a hundred and fifteen years the Rosen Association has made machines that are mistaken for living things: birds, instruments of feeling and, for a time, hands that worked beside human ones. Each has left the House with a certificate naming everyone who made it.

Article I, 14 March 1911 No piece shall leave the house without a true account of its making, signed by its makers. The Articles of Association

Current notices

Notices to keepers

Notices stay on this page for as long as they apply. Each is also sent by letter to every registered keeper it concerns.

The pieces

Three pieces, three filings

Three Rosen pieces have been entered on the Turing Registry. One remains active. The house reports on all three in the same way.

The Owl’s left eye, front elevation. A large engraving of one glass eye in its facial disc: a black pupil with the blades of the iris diaphragm just visible inside it, an iris drawn as dense radiating fibers with small crypts and rings, a highlight, a heavy upper lid and a ring of fine feathers radiating outward.
Atelier drawing 209, 2010The left eye, with its facial disc.

The Rosen Owl

The Atelier, Seattle, 2008–2019. A replica.

A demonstration of craftsmanship, made over eleven years by thirty-one hands and declared, on its stand and in its papers, to be a made thing. It is not for sale. It is shown on Thursday evenings in the Salon.

Turing Registry TR-10215 · Active
Ornithological replica. Frequently mistaken for a living bird.

The dial of the Penfield Mk IV, front elevation. A round engraved dial with a knurled bezel. Forty-eight registers are grouped into six families: Ease, Attention, Warmth, Vigor, Gravity and Rest. The last four registers of Gravity are cross-hatched to mark the wellbeing threshold. Below the central knob is the Almanac window with the days of the week, and to the right a keyhole for the confirmation key. 123456781234567812345678123456781234567812345678 EASEATTENTIONWARMTHVIGORGRAVITYREST ROSEN · SEATTLE Penfield Mk IV MTWTFSS ALMANAC
Atelier drawing 226, 2022The dial, with the four registers below the wellbeing threshold cross-hatched.

Penfield Mk IV

The fourth mark of an instrument made since 1979

A bedside instrument that lets its keeper choose a mood from forty-eight registers and, until July, arrange them in advance. 61,412 were made at the Penfield Works. Its license is suspended pending a dosage audit; it remains safe to use within the registers the suspension permits.

Turing Registry TR-11215 · Suspended
Mood regulation. Suspended pending a dosage audit.

A Nexus-6 left hand, palm toward the viewer. A workshop drawing of a mechanical left hand seen from the palm, so that the thumb is on the right: a palm plate, four fingers and a thumb, each finger made of three jointed segments with pinned knuckles. The last joint of the middle finger is drawn pulled out along a dashed axis. A B C D
Atelier drawing 219, 2020A left hand, palm toward the viewer. Every Nexus hand was assembled twice.

The Nexus line

The Works, Everett, 2021–2024

Humanoid units for general labor in licensed off-world settings. The line was recalled in December 2024, when it could no longer be told apart from the people it worked beside by any test then in use. Nine units remain outstanding.

Turing Registry TR-09911 · Revoked
General labor. Recalled by operator.

Also at the House: the heritage collection, forty-four purely mechanical pieces made between 1911 and 1979, which have never needed a license, and the first Nexus study.

Thursday evenings in the Salon

After dusk, the Owl attends

The Owl wakes at dusk whether or not anyone is watching. On Thursday evenings, from six until nine, it is shown in the Salon of the House to keepers, their guests and anyone who has written ahead. The next is on 5 November 2026; dusk falls at 4:43.

The Owl’s head mechanism, exploded along its axis. Eight components drawn in sequence along a dashed axis and lettered A to H: the facial disc, the eyelids, the eye glass, a thirteen-bladed iris diaphragm, the skull frame, the neck gimbal, a heart-shaped attention cam and the mainspring barrel. A B C D E F G H NO. 207
Atelier drawing 207, 2011The head mechanism, drawn apart along its axis: facial disc, eyelids, eye glass, iris diaphragm, skull frame, neck gimbal, attention cam and mainspring barrel. Three years of the Owl’s making were spent on the head alone.

Request an appointment The Owl in full

Constituted at Seattle, 14 March 1911

An association of makers, and a family

The Association was constituted by eleven makers who agreed to share a workshop, a hallmark and a rule. Among them were a clockmaker, an organ builder, an enameler, a cabinetmaker and a maker of glass eyes for museums. The clockmaker was Tobias Rosen, and the house has carried his name since the first meeting, at which he was elected President.

It is still an association. Its Associates are master makers elected for life by the others, and every seven years they elect a President from among themselves. The house has no shareholders. Its reserve, which the Articles require to be large enough to service every Rosen piece in existence for twenty-five years without another sale, has met that test every year since 1946.

Today the house employs 398 people: 195 makers at the bench in Seattle and Everett, 38 apprentices, and the clerks, attendants, archivists and agents who keep its records and its promises.

The house and its makers
Chronology, 1911–2026
Leadership

Statements, notices and notes from the house

From the Journal

  1. Nexus-6 recall: status at 31 October 2026

    2,309 of the 2,318 units commissioned have been recovered. Nine remain outstanding.

    Notice to keepers

  2. On Frothly’s report, On Artificial Owls

    Frothly’s new report on provenance in synthetic media cites the house’s statement of April 2025. We agree with almost all of it.

    From the house

  3. Apprenticeships for 2027

    The house will take apprentices in seven trades next year. Applications close on 15 January 2027.

    From the house

  4. Penfield Mk IV: firmware 4.2.1 and the Almanac

    Tonight every Mk IV will receive firmware 4.2.1, which withdraws the Almanac and locks registers V.5 to V.8 while the license is suspended.

    Notice to keepers

  5. Statement on the suspension of the Penfield Mk IV

    The Turing Registry has suspended the license for the Penfield Mk IV pending a dosage audit. The Association accepts the suspension.

    Statement

All entries in the Journal