SIV SUNDFAER
&
CHRISTIAN KÖCK
Oslo-born Siv Sundfær is a trained political scientist who long worked as a liaison between patients and hospitals in the health-care industry. Christian Köck is a Harvard-educated professor of health policy and management with double doctoral degrees. Based in Vienna, the couple now runs a holding company for health-care investments, the firm behind southern Austria’s remarkable health-meets-design-meets-spa-culture life medicine RESORT. The two are also majority shareholders in the col legno contemporary classic music label.
MEET SIV & CHRISTIAN
It’s about breaking through boundaries and stepping over assumptions,” says Christian Köck, half of the dynamic duo that instigated and runs life medicine RESORT in the gorgeous landscape surrounding Bad Gleichenburg, in southern Austria. His wife, Siv Sundfær, agrees. According to her, the two health-care experts “became hotel managers by accident” but it’s no coincidence that this unique combination of top medical diagnostic health care, centuries-old Central European spa culture and modern architecture mix into a place where anyone would want to feel their best. From thermal baths to cryotherapy, “We’re trying to create an environment where you feel personally cared for,” explains Sundfær.
MADE BY ORIGINALS
Behind every hotel in Design Hotels’™ curated collection is an original, holistic concept. And behind each successful concept is a person or team who – in a flash of inspiration or a moment of accidental discovery – thought it up and made it into a reality.
Design Hotels™ properties are Made by Originals. Whether designers or developers, CEOs or chefs, owners or operators, our originals are always outstanding personalities and extraordinary thinkers. They are the motors behind pioneering design and revolutionary hospitality. They are the instigators of new movements in how we travel and live today.