Is It Sexy? Is It Elegant? With Tatjana von Stein, Of Course.

We meet Tatjana von Stein, interior designer of The Dean Munich, to talk inspiration, nature and the singular joy in finding the perfect plug socket placement. 

On the day we speak, Tatjana von Stein’s Zoom background is a blank white wall. She’s the interior designer behind The Dean Munich, so perhaps that’s surprising. There’s not a swatch in sight, and I’m glad, because Tatjana is perfectly served by a minimalist background. There’s so much richness and energy in how she communicates that a marching band could have been playing out in the background and I wouldn’t have noticed. Or cared. 

In Tatjana’s world, design revolves around a set of eternal questions. “How does it feel? Is it sexy? Is it elegant?” These questions anchor her practice. Her energy is hard to define and impossible to look away from, and her aesthetic sensibilities extend to everything she does, including this call. This is a Zoom with a perfectly accessorised view, jewel-toned rings and gold bracelets glinting as she lights up when describing her favourite spaces at her most recently opened project, our own Westend gem, The Dean Munich.

“For me, the most compelling hospitality spaces are those that reveal themselves gradually. Rather than designing to a formula, I am always interested in creating environments that evoke a feeling”

There’s designing the hotel, but there’s also the small matter of Ibasho, the Japanese concept restaurant on the ground floor. A fine balance and a good challenge for this designer that thinks in experience first. Across the project, Tatjana combined context and culture to remarkable effect, taking inspiration from the 1920s Jugendstil movement and combining that with the exuberant energy of the city’s 1980s music scene. The building lent itself well to the unexpected juxtaposition of these two influences, and you can feel the opulent elegance of Munich’s iconic late 19th century Villa Stuck meeting the energy of 1980s Munich. In that decade, Munich was a pulsing destination filled with disco, punk, pop and club culture for the likes of David Bowie, Madonna, Mick Jagger, Whitney Houston, Depeche Mode and Freddie Mercury, who famously celebrated his 39th birthday by filming the video for Living On My Own at the long-gone dance club Old Mrs. Henderson on Rumfordstraßein. 

Tatjana’s path to design wasn’t a linear one, making it all the more fascinating. She studied psychology at university, putting on music events and working in set design for theatre at night. After uni, her career began in documentary making, telling stories through people and places for years before moving into creative direction. The design line continued to reveal itself through a series of eclectic projects, including one where she designed an experiential retail concept for a tech unicorn. This lit a spark within her, and before long, she moved from curatorial roles into that of a visionary who creates worlds while agonising about every last join, plug socket and lighting detail. Hers is a rare balance of the creative and the technical, and she’s an intuitive designer led by an understanding of emotion and the human experience, placing people at the centre of everything. Her experience comes together to make her the designer she is today, from psychology and experiential structures to perfectly-paced storytelling.

This is all very evident at The Dean Munich. Tatjana says “it’s an honour to work on international projects, to dig into the culture and local context and start from there as reference points.” Despite having spent time in Munich as a child, she found the city’s essence harder to grasp, so began the project with a deeper dive than usual into the research, surfacing the Jugendstil/1980s inspiration. The results can be felt in the space, the context, the architecture, history and cultural aspects of Munich, the materiality and artisanship. 

There’s also the neighbourhood. According to Tatjana, “Munich is at a really interesting point. It’s known for Old Town, but Westend is so interesting because here you find creatives, craftspeople, potters. It feels like the beginning of East London again.” On that central question about how she wants people to feel, it’s “inspired about this design and culture-led space and for creativity to grow here. I want people to see it and feel excited about it.” 

At The Dean Munich, Tatjana has designed a flow based on invisible lines that create a crescendo of excitement and movement that ignites curiosity. Walk through the doors and you immediately find yourself in an 80s moment, all smooth curves and chrome goodness. Move deeper into the lobby and spot the detail, everything considered no matter how tiny (look up at the roof). The Japanese concept restaurant Ibasho is a symphony, with stained glass referencing Jugendstil playing off the glossy C-shaped bar and sunken seating area under the mirrored ceiling. “I love designing in juxtaposition,” says Tatjana, “creating a social space with a layered approach for a sense of discovery for different types of people, at different times of the day and night.”

“Nature remains a principle source of joy” she says, and this is evident in her lush prints and water-like lacquer finishes, the sinuous curves of her design evoking the mountains surrounding Munich. Her cultural references are the fulcrum of the magic, with the monochromatic, metallic, shiny sleekness of the 1980s warming up the influence of nature in soft fabrics and materials that nod to Jugendstil. Take these two inspirations, add a dash of the signature Tatjana von Stein flair and there you have it. Sexy? Elegant? You’ll have to come see for yourself.