The apartment opens slowly. Light enters first, filtered through pale curtains and moving across oak floors, unveiling an interplay of shadows that feels intentional. Outside, Lisbon hums in the distance; inside, the atmosphere settles somewhere quieter. Objects have been carefully chosen: a sculptural lamp, a piece of wood worn by touch, a home that doesn’t rush and even asks you to linger a bit more.
This is where we meet Claus Sendlinger, a figure whose name has long been connected to how we move through the world. As the founder of Design Hotels, he helped shape a new hospitality language in the 1990s, one that brought architecture, individuality, and a sense of place to the foreground at a time when global travel still spoke mostly in brands. Today, his work has shifted scale and speed. Together with his business partners, Sendlinger is still building Slowness, a collective of places and practices that frame hospitality not as an escape, but as an ongoing relationship with land and the communities in it.
The home he shares with his family reflects that evolution. Designed with the contribution of designer and friend Cédric Etienne, it carries clear traces of Japanese influence, shaped in part by the years they spent there. Ritual matters here. Morning light, shared meals, daily walks. As Ann-Kathrin shares, Sendlinger’s wife, their thinking has long been informed by The Disappearance of Rituals by Byung-Chul Han, a book that frames rituals as soothing gestures of care. In a time when acceleration and noise mark the pace, these small repetitions become anchors. It feels fitting, then, to begin this conversation not with hotels or projects, but with how one chooses to live.
Looking back from where you are now, what were your first steps?
If you go back more than thirty years, the hospitality landscape looked very different. International travel was dominated by large hotel chains. Around that time, a few people started doing something else. Not necessarily hoteliers, but individuals coming from design, culture, or personal conviction. Small hotels began to appear, driven by an idea rather than a standard. I wasn’t a hotelier either. I came from communications and was running a travel and events business. When I encountered these places, I kept wondering why the industry wasn’t paying attention.
And that’s how Design Hotels began. We didn’t have the money to build a traditional brand or invest in elaborate business tools. We had a simple observation, though: there were a handful of hotels around the world that boasted a different attitude: they were privately owned, run by individuals, and shaped by architecture and aesthetics.
As the idea grew, it became part of a new global standard. Design-conscious spaces appeared everywhere. As this acceleration took hold, I began to feel increasingly uneasy. What had once helped identify places with depth was slowly turning into a commodity.
Is that where Slowness comes in?
Yes, it emerged from a growing discomfort, both personally and professionally. Efficiency had become the dominant value — faster growth, faster decisions, faster returns — and at some point, that speed began to feel hollow. Of course, sustainability matters. But we felt we were missing something. We live in an over-polluted world, not just environmentally, but mentally. The moments that stayed with me were never the efficient ones, but those where time expanded: long conversations, shared meals, arriving slowly rather than performing instantaneously. That led us to ask whether hospitality could play a different role. Could it become a refuge, a place for connection with others as well as oneself? Slowness grew out of that earnest question.
Your big project in Berlin, Flussbad, feels like a culmination of this thinking.
Flussbad has been in development for ten years, and we’re now closer than ever to opening fully. It is the campus of Slowness, built on the site of historic river baths. We approached it as a regenerative project, preserving what could be saved and adding new structures. One of those is the Reethaus, a very special building. The architect, Monika Gogl, worked closely with sound engineers to integrate a spatial sound system directly into the architecture. The space almost behaves like an instrument. And we’ve hosted artists and thinkers like Brian Eno, Jim Jarmusch, and Jon Hopkins.
And you’ve been in Portugal for several years now. What brought you here?
Lisbon came to our attention while looking for schools for our kids, and at the same time, we were invited by friends to help develop a farm in Meco as a regenerative farming and community agriculture project. It’s called Friends of a Farmer, and we’ve been working on it for about five years now. We grow vegetables and other produce and organise a mid-week farmers’ market at Praça das Flores in Lisbon, together with Magnolia. People can visit the farm, take part in events, workshops, and harvest celebrations.
At the same time, it reflects the broader way we approach our work through Slowness. Longevity is a popular term right now, but for us, it starts with everyday lifestyle and nutrition. That thinking has guided us for over a decade and extends into other initiatives, such as our collaboration with Passa ao Futuro to help build a library of Portuguese crafts, as well as ideas for new, open membership-based formats.
The word ‘slow’ appears everywhere now. In your day-to-day lives, what does slow actually mean? Or what does it change, if anything?
I understand why the word ‘slow’ can feel diluted. It’s everywhere, and it risks becoming just another label. But for me, slowness isn’t about moving more slowly. It’s about intentionality: the difference between being busy and being present. It shifts how you make decisions, away from scale and toward substance, and asks for more attention to people, places, and consequences. All in all, slowness means doing things with care and respect for natural rhythms, creating space for depth rather than accumulation.
And now back to your home in Lisbon, do you have a favourite feature?
The mornings. Without question. Watching the light slowly get in, sitting together before the day truly begins. These moments matter. We often talk about rituals in our family. Small, repeated gestures that create presence. In a world that feels chaotic, with too much information being thrown at you at all times, these practices ground us. Maybe that’s where slowness really starts.
