Illuminating Community Resilience
Fogo Island Inn Chandelier
Client
Shorefast Foundation
Location
Fogo Island Inn
Concept & Design
Tjep.
Design Team
Frank Tjepkema, Marjon Isaert
Production
Tjep.
Year
2013
A Rope-Woven Beacon of Local Ingenuity
Envision a chandelier that hangs like a fisherman's net of light—woven from weathered ropes that once hauled cod from Newfoundland's turbulent seas, now casting a warm, story-laden glow over communal gatherings. The Fogo Island Inn Chandelier, designed by Tjep. in 2013, graces the inn's dining spaces as a sculptural testament to place-based craft, transforming humble maritime materials into an elegant fixture that honors the island's rugged heritage.
From Shorefast's Vision to Tjep.'s Touch
Commissioned for the Fogo Island Inn's opening, Tjep.'s design emerged from a deliberate call for island-made objects, as envisioned by Zita Cobb, the inn's founder and a trailblazing social entrepreneur. Cobb, born in 1958 on Fogo Island amid the collapse of the cod fishery that nearly erased her community, channeled her fortune from a fiber-optics career into Shorefast—a 2004 nonprofit co-founded with her brothers Anthony and Alan. Shorefast's ethos: reinvest tourism surpluses into the local economy, ensuring every guest dollar sustains artisans, fishers, and families rather than extracting wealth. "We needed objects that didn't exist before, like chandeliers," Cobb reflected in a 2014 Dezeen interview, leading to Tjep.'s collaboration under interior guidance from Ilse Crawford. The result? A parametric weave of recycled fishing ropes, hand-knotted by Fogo locals, blending Tjep.'s parametric precision with the island's tactile traditions.
Zita Cobb: The Architect of Social Entrepreneurship
Zita Cobb's journey embodies radical place-making: after witnessing her island's near-resettlement in the 1960s—spared only by a groundbreaking 1967 National Film Board documentary that sparked community activism—she returned in the early 2000s to build Shorefast. Investing $10 million alongside government grants, Cobb created a circular model where the 29-room inn, designed by Todd Saunders, funnels 100% of profits back into Fogo's ecosystem: funding artist residencies, co-ops, and geotourism that revived a population of just 2,500. Honored as a Member of the Order of Canada in 2016 for her "innovative social engagement," Cobb's Shorefast Network now scales this blueprint globally, activating "stranded assets" in rural places from Newfoundland to Ontario's Prince Edward County. Her philosophy? Tourism serves community, not vice versa—turning visitors into stewards who "are hosted by the island," as she puts it.
Tjep.'s Woven Harmony with Fogo's Spirit
Frank Tjepkema's chandelier, with its undulating ropes diffusing light like ocean waves, mirrors Cobb's resilient weave of economy and culture—echoing Tjep.'s layered motifs in Clockwork Love or the transformative forms of Chrysalide. Suspended in the inn's salt-box-inspired halls, it illuminates not just rooms, but the quiet revolution of design as economic nourishment.
Lighting Legacies, One Knot at a Time
Intimate yet illuminating, it proves craft can knit futures. Explore more of Tjep.'s collaborative wonders on Tjep.com, where design anchors community.