Delta force
A new Okavango lodge to reckon with
Newly unveiled in Botswana’s Okavango River Delta, Xigera Safari Lodge is as much ‘a living gallery of African talent’ as a celebration of the natural landscape. Created by the Tollman family, of the Red Carnation hotel group, together with architect Anton De Kock and architectural designer Philip Fourie, the lodge boasts a remarkable collection of contemporary African art, design and craft, curated by Toni Tollman (the group’s director of design and projects), in collaboration with South African design gallery Southern Guild.
‘Xigera Safari Lodge is our love letter to the magic of the African bush, the culmination of a lifelong dream,’ says Tollman. ‘We know our guests will leave utterly transformed by Africa’s life-enhancing beauty.’
Two years in the making, the project features one of the most ambitious collections of contemporary African design, with furniture, site-specific installations, objects and artworks by Porky Hefer, Atang Tshikare, Zizipho Poswa, Dokter and Misses, and many more. Joining the work of elite furniture makers, including Mabeo, are pieces by local social enterprises such as Woza Moya, a project of the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust that creates traditional beadwork pieces with a contemporary twist, and Coral & Hive, a South African female-powered weaving collective.
De Kock designed the Xigera lodge as a series of pavilions on stilts, with undulating canopied roofs inspired by the wings of birds in flight. The buildings, 95 per cent solar-powered, are immersed in nature, surrounded by a maze of waterways, floodplains, riverine forests, tawny grasslands and verdant papyrus wetlands – all of which can be enjoyed from the property’s numerous outdoor decks.
Further design elements that help connect the property with the outdoors include a baobab-shaped tree house, a custom water feature in Corten steel by De Kock, a totemic fire-pit sculpture by artist-blacksmith Conrad Hicks, and Porky Hefer-designed woven ‘nests’.
Communal areas and the 12 guest suites all showcase contemporary African creativity, both in terms of the artworks on display and the functional elements of the guests’ stay, such as the mouthblown glassware, made by South Africa’s Ngwenya craft team and featuring recycled glass, or the place mats by Gone Rural, an Eswatini textile enterprise offering employment to local women while promoting cultural heritage.
The bar features a colourful sunken lounge anchored by a copper sculpture, designed by Toni Tollman and made by South African foundry Bronze Age Studio in the shape of a lily, Xigera’s logo and a recurrent motif throughout the site. Another highlight are the expressive terracotta seats from Andile Dyalvane’s ‘Idladla’ collection, which are placed around Pretoria-based Philippe Bousquet’s modernist chess set on one of the decks, reflecting Xigera’s eclectic mix of styles and craft techniques.
‘There are so many spectacular artworks at Xigera, but what stands out is the considered attention to every detail, and the craftsmanship in each and every item,’ says Southern Guild’s co-founder Trevyn Mcgowan. ‘Almost every surface, every object has been handcrafted to celebrate the geography and ecology of the Delta.’ *