The quietly luxurious Fogo Island Inn – on the little-known island off an island off the north-eastern coast of Canada – shot to design prominence earlier this year when it opened its doors. This was partly because of its distinct bespoke furniture conceived by a roster of lauded designers and drawing on the island’s unusual traditional crafts (a striking contemporary structure by architect Todd Saunders located on wave-lashed cliffs helps too).
Until now, you literally had to travel to the ends of the earth to purchase the furniture at the inn’s shop on the island. But guests – and the international press – loved the furniture so much that the inn has now made the furniture available to a wider audience through Toronto-based furniture retailer Klaus by Nienkämper.
The furniture can be purchased through the retailer’s showroom and shipped anywhere in the world.
Internationally lauded designers from Canada and Europe designed the handcrafted collection of furniture in late 2013. For three years, designers such as Ineke Hans, Elaine Fortin and Donna Wilson traveled to Fogo Island and immersed themselves in its distinct culture. They worked with local artisans and residents to get to know the traditional culture, motifs, materials and craft techniques, and together they translated these into contemporary furniture pieces.
We first covered Ineke Hans’s collaboration with the locals here.
The strength of the furniture collection is its rootedness in the culture of this tiny island, a dot on the map whose appeal is rippling outwards.
View more images of the furniture here.
