Bauhaus chess game

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bauhaus chess game

As Bauhaus chess are pawns referred that the sculptor Josef Hartwig 1923 at the State Bauhaus had designed. The design of the figures is reduced to crosses , squares and circles , and their shape and proportion show the possible directions of play.

The figures of the chess game are not determined by historical conventional models and do not appear figurative. The decisive factor for the shape of the chess pieces is their function in the game. This means that even beginners can easily understand the rules of the game.

With the design of the chess pieces, Josef Hartwig complied with the demands of the Bauhaus director Walter Gropius that an object should be practical, durable, cheap and beautiful . The chess game was one of the first series products from the Bauhaus. In 1924 there was a modified design that is based on the basic forms of cube and sphere (like the " stone of good luck " in Goethe's garden house). Today the Bauhaus chess set is produced by the Swiss manufacturer Naef.

In 1926, Josef Hartwig explained his design for the chess pieces in a sample sheet from the Bauhaus:

“The new game pieces are made up of the basic stereometric shapes: cube and ball. Individually or combined, they indicate the gait through their shape and their value through their volume. The pawn and the tower move at right angles to the edge of the board, expressed by the die. The jumper moves at right angles in a hook shape, right-angled cube arrangement. The runner moves diagonally to the edge of the board: an inclined cross cut from the cube. The king moves at right angles and diagonally: a small cube across a corner on a larger one. The queen, the most flexible figure, consists of a cube and a ball. It stands in stark contrast to the king. Tower and pawn are only made up of the cube, the symbol of the massive and heavy. The play value is indicated by height and volume: king and queen, bishop and knight are the same size and each have half the volume of the rook. "

Web links

Commons : Bauhaus chess game  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. No money for chess monument In: de.chessbase.com. May 20, 2010, accessed October 23, 2019.
  2. ^ Bauhaus chess game at Naef Spiele
  3. ^ Bauhaus chess game by Josef Hartwig at lestyle, from November 28, 2018.