Few designers create spaces with quite the same sense of atmosphere as Tatjana von Stein. Whether she's transforming a boutique hotel or a private home, her interiors feel theatrical, layered and emotionally rich, blending dramatic gestures with thoughtful restraint.

But in the latest installment of our series, she explains how her route into design was anything but conventional. After studying psychology, working in film set design and dreaming of opening her own hotel, it was a chance encounter on a flight that unexpectedly launched her interiors career. More than a decade later, she has become known for creating spaces that transport people, drawing on influences that range from theater and travel to art, movement and memory.

Here, Tatjana reflects on growing up between cultures, why she believes every project should tell its own unique story, and how designing a home is ultimately less about following trends than understanding the people who will live, gather, and breathe within it.

Is there anything in your childhood that hinted at the career path you’d take?

Tatjana von Stein: Not a direct hint, no, but I was always creating worlds – I had a strong sense of play. I grew up in the Austrian mountains, and I was in nature all the time. I have an imagination, and so you create little worlds through games. I also did a lot of theater – I was on stage as a child, and in doing that, you imagine a world. My mother was always telling stories – she was French, and my father was German, and we would travel to both countries a lot from Austria. They were both very different worlds from each other and from our Austrian mountain village, so I became quite adaptable and found it easy to slip between worlds.

Were your parents creative?

Tatjana von Stein: My mom is an artist, so yes. I have two sisters and a brother, and all the girls in my family are creative. Between my love of theater and their love of art and sculpture and making things with your hands, we were all always creating something. My mother was always painting in the house.

Were you influenced by what your mum was painting and how she was decorating the home?

Tatjana von Stein: The mix influenced me, certainly. I find it easy to mix things and hard to stick to just one style or discipline. I believe that humans are complex and there are layers to everything we do, and I just can't help adding layers and tension to the rooms I create. Later on, my mom remarried, and my stepfather was English and had lived in Hong Kong, so suddenly we had a lot of Asian furniture. Mix that with mountain life, and it's quite a blend! And it taught me a lot about tension.

At what point did you start to think about design as a career?

Tatjana von Stein: I don't have a straight line into this career, I can tell you! I studied psychology, and I was always very fascinated by humans – how people feel and grow. But I found the doctrines of psychology quite hard, as I also have a belief in the mystical connection between us all. I suppose that education has lingered in the way I approach things, with a sensibility toward how people will think and feel in a space. Anyway, I had got a job in documentaries and short films, and that company had a set design department, which I then had a stint in. But it was my 20s, and I was having far too many big ideas. You're either an entrepreneur or you're not, and I most definitely was. I wanted to start a hotel, and never did, but of course now I design them. And I realized that I didn't want to run a hotel – I wanted to create a world for people to inhabit.

So how did you move into interiors from set design?

Tatjana von Stein: At uni, I was always creating spaces where people come together – that's just what I'd do in our dorm rooms or whatever. And by chance, I met a lawyer on a plane to Ibiza, and we got chatting, and she said I had to meet her boss. He was a huge tech entrepreneur who had invested in a furniture brand, a tailoring brand, and a wine brand, and he didn't know how to tie them all together in this office space he had in Clerkenwell. So I came up with a consumer concept for him where you could experience all these things in one space, and I created all these ideas, flows, and experiences. I was like, 'Cool, OK, we have a space,' and he said, 'No, you're going to design it,' and I was like, 'What?!'

How did you tackle it?

Tatjana von Stein: I did it with a friend who was an art director, and the project was fully decorative – working out the art and scrambling to choose a floor. There was no skill to it. Then, after a couple of years, I had an idea – another one of my big ones – that I wanted to create a retail experience where you come and experience craft, and I kept knocking on all these doors, looking for someone to let me. One developer said no but asked me to design a communal space in a building, and even though I said I wasn't a designer, one thing led to another, and I took it on.

Did you feel like you had any idea how to do this?

Tatjana von Stein: The more I work at this, the more I think no one knows what they're doing! I am just intuitive. I understood how to bring people together and why it should look and feel a certain way. Then, fast-forward 10 years, and now I'm designing 300-bedroom hotels and obsessing over the details in joinery. I've worked hard; I've learned architecture and drawing. I walk into a space and see it in 3D. We've gone from creating spaces to designing them, and as a studio, we are now more spatial than decorative.

How does a space of yours bring people together?

Tatjana von Stein: To bring people together, it’s layers. First, it’s about trying to get a sense of the project, to really listen. It's less about coming in and saying, ‘I love this this season,’ and more about really listening, being solutions-based, and getting to know the local sensibility, craft, and materiality. I get a real feeling for the space, and then it’s research – digging into a culture and its art, music, and history is a privilege. In my head, all my work is unique, but the process for each one is the same.

How has your personal interiors style evolved over this time?

Tatjana von Stein: Oh, it has evolved massively. Looking at my homes over the years, some pieces remain, some move. We change, life changes, everything changes all the time. I have things I keep, I have memories, and my home is definitely a showcase of different eras and stories.

How does your home make you feel, having these memories on display?

Tatjana von Stein: I get so much joy. I feel like home is breath and truth. At the moment, I have super-high ceilings – I live in a space that is part of a group of studios that have belonged to famous artists over the years, people like Barbara Hepworth. It has such a sense of light, and I get such a sense of being able to breathe in it. I am very inspired and feel privileged all the time to live there and for it to give me such joy.

Are there any particular objects that hold a lot of memories for you?

Tatjana von Stein: I made a sculpture of a female body in clay when I was a teenager that I still have next to me on my desk. I have never thought of myself as crafty – my mom and sisters were, and they'd make clothes and things, but the idea of embroidery was not appealing to me. My creativity comes in different ways, and next to my sisters, I always felt not very creative. But I made that sculpture, and it taught me that if you apply yourself to something, you can do it, and I like being reminded of that.

Outside of interiors, what fuels your creativity?

Tatjana von Stein: Going to the theater – I love watching the set designs. I can walk down the street, see a pebble, and that can inspire a form. Art, museums, literature, people, objects – everything inspires me.

Do you think that love of theater – performing when young and now being inspired by sets – influences your style and work?

Tatjana von Stein: Yes, I always need theater in my work. Movement is a really big thing for me. I love dance, that sense of play that comes through when people move. I just love the idea of people roaming around in a cocoon that I've created for them and being transported into a different world. I always want everything to be super dramatic.

You've talked a lot about evolution, so as ideas change, how do you ever know when a project is finished?

Tatjana von Stein: Well, fortune favors the brave, but restraint is a big part of my discipline and awareness. In design, there is no right or wrong. You just have to go with the right feeling for a project, have a point of view, and never, ever be generic.

For Tatjana von Stein, every project begins with listening, grows through curiosity, and is shaped by a desire to create places that feel emotionally resonant rather than merely beautiful. Whether she's designing a 300-bedroom hotel or her own light-filled home, her instinct remains the same: to create spaces with atmosphere, movement, and meaning, where memories are made and displayed.

It's a philosophy that explains why her work feels so transportive. Rather than chasing a signature style, she continues to evolve, believing the most memorable interiors are those with courage, individuality, and, above all, a story worth telling.

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