Known for his modern architectural designs, Frank Gehry creates a chess set for Tiffany & Co. which is being touted as a miniature architectural marvel.
Knight to E-5. Rook to A-7. Pawn to C-4. Check! Everyone knows the traditional pieces on the chess board. Throughout time, many artists and designers have taken inspiration from others to create a unique, original chess board. This includes pieces from popular cartoons, videogames, steampunk designs, and even abstract forms. Now a famous architect is putting his own spin on these pieces. Frank Gehry, a famous architect known for designing the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, or the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, was just commissioned by Tiffany & Co., known for their beautiful, luxurious jewelry, to create a fun and funky chess set.
Gehry took an interesting approach to creating the various chess pieces. Rather than using inspiration from his already amazing portfolio, he opted to base the design of all the chess pieces based on their role in this game. Pawns have cannons in different directions, the king has sharp angles, and the queen piece has soft curves.
The pieces are made from fine bone-china and much like everything else at Tiffany & Co., this chess set comes with a hefty price tag – $25,000. That is quite a staggering price to try to get checkmate.
A big thanks goes out to the guys over at Gizmodo for clueing us in on this fun story.
For more fun chess set designs, check out this Zelda chess set or this other chess set made from .223 caliber bullet shells!
