GOING OUT FOR DINNER?
Dinner at Penalva da Graca
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A busy day during the high season.
WE LOVE RIDING THE TRAM 28
Lisbon's popular Tram 28 is only 3 minutes from Tins Lisbon. Here is all you need to know.
Art is too important to leave to “the hotel industry”
Beyond The Mini-Bar: How Hotels Are Reimagining The Modern Art Gallery The sterile hotel art of yesteryear — generic landscapes mass-produced for anonymity — is being replaced by vibrant cultural ecosystems. Around the world, a new breed of hospitality leaders is transforming lobbies, guest rooms, and even rooftops into dynamic platforms for contemporary art, democratizing access and forging unprecedented artist-community-corporate synergies.
Why our strategy was never a “normal hotel”
Back in 2008, when we sat down to write the business plan for our own place, we were not hoteliers – we were business strategists and concept people who had slept in more than 2,000 hotels. A small handful were inspiring; the rest were exactly what that Forbes quote talks about today: generic, sterile, forgettable. That observation became one of our core starting points.
So from day one, the strategy was simple: don’t be generic, don’t be sterile, don’t be background noise. If something felt like it came from a catalog, it didn’t belong in our house. Tings was never meant to be “on trend”; it was meant to feel like somebody’s slightly stubborn home that happens to have 18 rooms.
It was never our intention to get labeled as an independent art hotel. Tings is our playground where we play with our interests: Food, Flowers, Music, People… and art.
Art is everything you don’t have to do
We don’t paint, we don’t sculpt, we don’t make installations. What we do have is a stubborn love for people who do – the ones who choose to spend their time making something nobody has asked for, but that somehow makes the world feel more alive. Brian Eno’s line lands perfectly for us: art is everything you don’t have to do – the dance instead of just walking, the style instead of just clothes.
A bed, a shower and Wi‑Fi are necessary; without art, life slowly turns into wallpaper. That’s why our “amenities” list will always include a changing mix of shows, murals, drawings and strange little pieces in corners where other hotels would put a neutral print.
Room Art
Garuda by Aditya Arial, Triangle Room
Nneka by Yann Chatelin, aka Poze, Terrace Lounge
Self Portrait by Christian Finne, Garden Room.
Black Rose by Christian Lemmerz, Lemon Tree Lounge.
Look Into My eyes by Mega, Garden Twin.
Dancer by Sylvie Adaoust, Moroccan Queen
Jungle by Anders Brinch, Tings Studio
Johnny Rotten by Jørgen Angel, Duplex Lounge.
A house full of stories, not posters
Tings Lisbon is our way into that world. If we can’t create the works, we can create the space: a house where every wall, corridor, stair and toilet has a story painted, drawn or printed on it. Guests don’t walk past mass‑produced posters (with or without frames), but past originals made by artists we know personally – many of whom we’ve worked with in Kathmandu, Denmark and now Lisbon.
The same obsession spills over into everything else. Breakfast is as homemade as possible from the best local ingredients we can get, our flowers are either from our garden, from secret picking spots or from the small shops we like, and all the music is curated album by album – no playlists, no algorithms, just whole records chosen by Thomas. (Good place to link an internal playlist post, plus maybe an external Brian Eno piece or a Lisbon gallery like Underdogs for readers who want to explore the city’s art scene beyond Tings.)
Art Events
How your room keeps the art alive
We pay for the openings, we handle the communication, we push the invitations, we pay the printers, framers and the wine for the vernissage. The money you pay for your room and your drinks is what makes that possible; quietly, in the background, your stay helps us keep this little art ecosystem alive – exhibitions, murals, shows and odd projects that might not exist without guests who choose a small, slightly stubborn place over a cheaper, more generic option.
So if our prices sometimes look “too low for all this work” or “high for a small hotel in Graça”, keep this in mind: you’re not just renting a bed. You’re helping us give time, space and attention to artists who insist on making something beautiful in a world full of stuff nobody really wants to look at.
Space Art
"Lovers" by Haugen S;rensen & "TogA" by Charlotte Ritto
"Goofy" by Bisner
"Ascenseur pour l'échafaud 1/7" by Aditya Arial
"Vinter Pik" vs "Morgenmad til Aftensmad" by HuskMitNavn
Seahorse by Maria Dubin
“ELVIS O Meu Rei do Rock” by Camila Watson
"Media Junky" by Bruno Levy
"Grumpy" by Tommy Bogs aka Rocco
Our way of being involved – 15 years of “reimagining”
We still don’t make art – but through Tings we get to stand next to it, learn from the people who do and share their worlds with everyone who walks through our door. That is our way of being involved, and our way of giving something back to the cities we live in.
And yes, it’s a bit funny that, after 15 years of doing it this way, we suddenly show up in places like Forbes under labels like “reimagining the modern art gallery”. For us it never started as a trend; it was just the only honest way we could imagine running a hotel.
/Thomas
