Beautiful floor goban from New Zealand

[msgreg]

Just ran across these beautiful floor gobans from New Zealand.

The craftsman, Nigel Whitton, is very responsive to email.

Edit: corrected name of craftsman.

[CnP]

That's a lot nicer than a giant turtle go board.

[Dokuganryu]

I don't like it Looks like a chair.

[bogiesan]

Beautiful piece of woodcraft art but I wonder about the practicality of playing go with those arms in the way. And there is no description of how the grid is applied. Looks like a Chinese layout. Does the artist play go?

As go gains popularity in the west, artists and craftsmen are going to elaborate on the ancient traditional equipment. Not all efforts will succeed. The Japanese reduced the board to the essential elements not only for aesthetic reasons but I would assume for practical reasons, too. The bowls and stones can be quite stunning in material and figure but the designs remain elegantly classic after hundreds of years.

[msgreg]

There are additional pictures in the gallery (last three pics). In fact the last pic shows (I assume) Nigel with stones on the board. He is positioned where the legs/wings span sideways. The third from the last picture in the gallery is a closeup of the board. In a description of the board, the base is described as a "soundbox". It looks like there is a 4-5cm board on top of the legged soundbox.

Not sure how the grid is applied, and it's hard to tell even from the closeup. It kind of looks engraved.

[CnP]

Personally I think its a pretty nice attempt at redesigning a go board, not to everyone's taste. In the description it says the grid is screen printed on. The sound box is hollow btw as you can see the finger joints..

[EdLee]

pretty nice attempt at redesigning a go board, not to everyone's taste. ...the grid is screen printed on.

I agree with CnP. I think it's nice to have new ideas and new designs,
and the carpentry and craftsmanship of the woodwork look quite nice.
But the grid lines and star points are quite ugly, to me.

[xed_over]

That's a lot nicer than a giant turtle go board.

but I like the turtle board

[badukJr]

Its a nice take and the legs wouldn't get in the way if you sat in the opening of the legs and not against them

But the grid is applied really thickly, it needs to be much finer. It cheapens the look too much.

[bogiesan]

Personally I think its a pretty nice attempt at redesigning a go board, not to everyone's taste. In the description it says the grid is screen printed on. The sound box is hollow btw as you can see the finger joints..

Ah, screened. Bummer. As noted elsewhere, lines are way too heavy.
But I wish the artist the best in his efforts to reinvent the ancient playing field. Hope he continues to experiment and to prosper.

[zslane]

As noted elsewhere, lines are way too heavy.

Too heavy for what? They are every bit as functional as thinner grid lines. You are simply unaccustomed to them, that's all. I guarantee that if a heavier grid had been the norm for the last thousand years, you'd be objecting to thinner lines as somehow "wrong" instead.

It is hard to imagine such intransigent devotion to tradition surviving much longer in an age where more games are played through easily customizable computer GUIs than on physical boards.

[tchan001]

May be functional but the heavy lines are not so aesthetically pleasing to the eye. If you are talking about only functionality, you could make the lines even thicker. But we are talking about a "beautiful floor goban" so this implies that we need to consider the aesthetics.

[zslane]

May be functional but the heavy lines are not so aesthetically pleasing to the eye. If you are talking about only functionality, you could make the lines even thicker. But we are talking about a "beautiful floor goban" so this implies that we need to consider the aesthetics.

Well, sure, but most experienced Go players are conditioned to think of thin grid lines as "aesthetically pleasing" merely because that is what they are used to. There is nothing intrinsically special, superior, or more "beautiful" about one line thickness over another. It is entirely arbitrary and comes down to whatever aesthetic form has been drilled into your brain over the course of many years. But complete beginners, for instance, have no such preference one way or the other. They enjoy the benefit of an open mind in this regard, and would likely have fewer objections to goban like the "modern" one from NZ.

[lemmata]

Some observations:

1) The hollow sound box. From the fact that he calls it a "sound box", I am guessing that it was designed to produce certain kinds of sounds (much like the body of a string instrument). It might be quite nice. He should post some high quality audio of stone placement.

2) From what is written on his web site, it seems that the top of table is replaceable with boards for other games. This leaves open the possibility of requesting a different go playing surface design as well. Perhaps you could request thinner, hand-drawn lines. Perhaps he would even be willing to modify the table base so that would fit your own nice kaya board.

That said, for whatever reason, I prefer the traditional designs. Then again, I am not a big fan of modern art, so my sensibilities may be behind the times.

[tchan001]

May be functional but the heavy lines are not so aesthetically pleasing to the eye. If you are talking about only functionality, you could make the lines even thicker. But we are talking about a "beautiful floor goban" so this implies that we need to consider the aesthetics.

Well, sure, but most experienced Go players are conditioned to think of thin grid lines as "aesthetically pleasing" merely because that is what they are used to. There is nothing intrinsically special, superior, or more "beautiful" about one line thickness over another. It is entirely arbitrary and comes down to whatever aesthetic form has been drilled into your brain over the course of many years. But complete beginners, for instance, have no such preference one way or the other. They enjoy the benefit of an open mind in this regard, and would likely have fewer objections to goban like the "modern" one from NZ.

No, complete beginners do have a preference and it's price. I doubt any beginner will pay a bucket of money for the modern design floor goban. People who do spend big money on go equipment usually spend it on very nice quality traditional ones especially those made as per traditional Japanese craftsmanship.

If you want to see what I mean by high-end go equipment, check out this old thread which talks about an exhibition in Beijing which was set up by one of the most famous Japanese master goban makers: viewtopic.php?p=86074

For a maker of expensive gobans, it doesn't matter if it's thick or thin lines, it's about what do the buyers with fat wallets want to buy.