Description
Alcoa Metal Matrix Composite Chess Set, 1988
Centennial Technical Symposium gift — not a commercial production
This set was not designed as a chess product. Alcoa Laboratories issued it to mark the company’s move into metal matrix composites (MMC) — aluminum-ceramic materials then being developed for high-performance uses, including military aircraft. The object had to do two things at once: show that MMC could be formed into precise, repeatable parts, and stand as a lasting emblem of intelligent engineering.
Alcoa chose Josef Hartwig’s 1924 Bauhaus chess geometry for that demonstration. The Hartwig forms are severe and exact: cubes, crosses, and L-blocks. If the composite could hold those edges and identities, it could hold a manufacturing argument. Chess itself supplied the other half of the message — a game associated with analysis, flexibility, and design under constraint.
The sets were given only to attendees of Alcoa’s three-year Centennial Technical Symposium (1986–1988) and mailed in September 1988. They were never offered for sale by Alcoa. Fewer than 200 were made. Every set still in circulation traces to that attendee list.
What you get
- 32-piece Alcoa metal matrix composite chess set-white and charcoal
- Pawns stamped with the Alcoa logo
- King 2″ high, 1-1/4″ footprint
- Inscribed board: polished aluminum and MMC squares in a clear polymer frame, marked Centennial Technical Symposium, 1986–1988
- Original black wooden case with the Alcoa Laboratories mark
- Excellent condition
Alcoa 1988 Hartwig MMC chess set — Centennial Technical Symposia board
For the abstract-chess collector
The silhouette is Hartwig. The object is Alcoa. This is a Bauhaus design language used as a materials brief, then issued as a closed corporate gift. It is not a Naef reproduction, and it is not the 1962 Austin Cox Alcoa set (larger anodized-aluminum pieces, different designer, different program).
Complete: pieces, symposium board, original case. Circa 1988. Limited to the Conference attendees only. Not a commercial Alcoa product. Very few were made.
Background.
This advanced materials chess set was Alcoa laboratories’ gift for participating in their three-year series of Centennial technical symposia. Their goal was to develop a Memento that would serve a dual purpose, (1) portray Alcoa’s thrust into the world of advanced materials and (2) become an enduring art form. this chess set certainly satisfied their objectives.
The Design. The chess pieces were designed by Joseph Hartwig in 1923. A number of Bauhaus school of architecture and design. Founded by architect Walter Gropius in 1919 at Weimar, Germany, Hartwig utilized symbols based on the patterns of movement of the individual pieces. His chess pieces combine the stereometric shapes of the cube, cylinder and sphere.
The materials. The chess pieces are made from specially processed, free-flowing, particulates of ultrafine, alumina base powders. They represent a significant breakthrough in Alcoa laboratories’ ability to produce uniform ceramic powders. Their fabrication is also based on an Alcoa developed centering process which produces parts of high-strength and fine texture.
The chessboard is Aluminum-Lithium sheet clad with a thin layer of nearly pure Aluminum. Its alloy is 2090 (AL: 2.7% Cu – 2.2% Li). The addition of lithium to aluminum reduces the density of the resulting alloy between 7% and 15%, enough to remove 14,000 pounds from today’s jumbo jet if substituted for conventional aluminum alloys. Unfortunately, lithium is an extremely reactive metal, so Alcoa scientists were required to develop new methods in melting, alloy, furnace design, Metal treatment and filtration, and ingot casting before the product could be produced in economical quantities.
The signature-bearing aluminum sheet on either end of the chess board is the material used to make easy-opening ends for beer and beverage cans! The chessboard surround is fabricated from a clear polymer. It represented Alcoa laboratories’ interest in the use of polymeric materials as a component in the highly engineered laminate and composite material systems dominating the materials marketplace.
