“Breaking the tools and also play” – an exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Bauhaus movement, which was presented at the Israel Museum in 2019 and has since been traveling around the world, included a rich variety of original works, activities and games in the spirit of the Bauhaus, a movement that was innovative for its time and is still relevant today.
Niso Adut, the founder of the luxury furniture company NISO and its chief designer, was invited by the curators of the exhibition to design a display that is a contemporary interpretation of one of the prominent Bauhaus symbols. Niso, a veteran and respected designer-craftsman, chose to create especially for the exhibition a large floor chess measuring 3×3 meters, as a tribute to the iconic game designed by Joseph Hartwig in 1924. The performance is a replica on a new scale. No longer a “table game”, but a “space of play” through which visitors are invited to return to the child within them and experience it. Hertwig’s iconic toys have been enlarged and meticulously handcrafted as wooden blocks lined with leather, Niso’s favorite material, which has long become the hallmark of his work. Thus each piece: rook, horse, runner, king, queen, pawn is actually a special shape and the place of the queens and kings is taken by the classic leather upholstery.
Since leather is a natural and sensitive material, Niso developed a unique coating process that gives it durability and protection and allows it to be used beyond the confines of the armchair to the floor. Visitors to the exhibition were invited to move on the checkered chessboard designed by Adut, and feel with their feet and hands the moves of each piece, until white or black wins.
According to the minimalist design concept of the Bauhaus people, according to the Form Following Function principle: the game of chess turns its back on the familiar war game with kings and queens, rooks, horses and runners, and in their place defines a geometric design derived from the function and importance of the game tools. Thus the size determines the class, and the shape of the polygon hints at the possible directions of movement: a cube for the rook, diagonals for the runner who can move in any direction, and so on.
As a token of appreciation for the exceptional design of the checkerboard and the success of the exhibition at the museum, Niso was officially recognized by the museum’s director general as a “master artist” and became the first furniture designer in Israel to exhibit in an exhibition at the museum. “After years of work and creation, there is nothing more exciting than receiving recognition for my art” – Niso concludes.
