06The PressBasel
One game,
one book.
- Where
- Basel, by appointment
- Editions
- 300 copies, never reprinted
- Write
- [email protected]
( About the press )
Zugzwang Editions is two people and a proofing press: a typesetter who plays badly and a club player who sets type slowly. We publish games the way other presses publish poems — one to a book, set in full, with room around it.
The pieces
Shape is
the move
Our diagrams draw the pieces after Josef Hartwig's Bauhaus chess set of 1924, where each piece is made of cubes, a sphere and slabs that describe how it may move. Seen from above they become the symbols on every board in our books.
King
One square in any direction. A square with a smaller cube set diagonally on top.
Queen
Any distance, straight or diagonal. A sphere on a square base: it rolls anywhere.
Rook
Any distance along ranks and files. A plain cube.
Bishop
Any distance along diagonals. Two crossing slabs, a saltire.
Knight
An L: two squares one way, one square across. Built as an L of blocks.
Pawn
Forward one square, two from its first square; captures diagonally. The smallest cube.
Order