A chessboard plays an integral part in man’s life just like the game does. It not only shapes your intellect but also proselytes your personality. If we dig a little deep into the history of chess sets, we would find that it has seen a number of iterations over time. During the reign of Kings, ivory chess sets were most popular because they believed in playing in style or not playing at all. With time, mankind gradually shifted to immensely popular wooden boards that are usually most preferred in international circuits to date.
After the inventive Phantom Robotic Chessboard that lets you play with your voice, a minimalist chess board has been designed by Tarek Elkassouf as a plain vanilla take on the board game where a player can lay his entire focus on the game, strategy building, and most importantly the movements of the pieces.
Material focused minimalism
Blurring the line between art and art pieces, the designer has made this modular chessboard with a minimalistic vibe. The entire chess set is characterized by its high-end material construction with every piece on the chess made discernible from the other.
Comprising of a solid board, the rectangular chess pieces are made from polished stainless steel with gunmetal reflective tops. The chess pieces are cut from stainless steel, brass, oxidized brass, and gunmetal. Moving to the board, there are four variations of chessboard made from Carrara Marble, Basalt, Travertino Classico, and Travertino Rosso.
The designer touts he has brought down the chessboard to its bare essential, though some amateurs might choose to disagree with this since the pieces and the squares are hard to recognize. For the pros, etched logos and height variance should however be enough to decipher what piece to move.
High gloss wooden box houses the board
I personally loved the entire chessboard but what won my heart were not the stainless pieces or the marble board but the high gloss wooden box. The entire set comes enclosed in this box with velvet lining which makes it possible to store every piece in its designated place.
Weighing around 11kg and crafted out of natural metals, the Carrara marble chess set appears elegant and exquisite. The exclusive chess set is limited edition, with a total of 100 examples available for sale, each priced at $2,950. The board measures around 30cm x 30cm while the box to house the chessboard is around 55cm x 35cm in length and breadth respectively.
