NOBU DOWNTOWN
NEW YORK, USA
“The group has one particular and
recent project that they should
be extremely proud of, the Nobu
Downtown, a modern exploration
of materiality in Japanese
craft and cuisine. ”
Based in New York with offices in Madrid and Shanghai, Rockwell
Group is renowned for being an interdisciplinary architecture and
design firm that highlights innovation and thought leadership
in every project. The group has one particular and recent project
that they should be extremely proud of, the Nobu Downtown, a
modern exploration of materiality in Japanese craft and cuisine.
This project was born from David Rockwell’s collaboration with
Chef Nobu Matsuhisa. This collaboration came to life with
one small restaurant in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighbourhood,
in which the duo conceived a design concept inspired by Chef
Nobu’s innovative cooking and the culture of the Japanese
countryside, where the chef was born and raised. Twenty-three
years later, Nobu Tribeca has been closed to make way for a new
flagship - Nobu Downtown – set in a landmark building in the
Financial District. For this reinvention of Nobu, David Rockwell
engaged with a number of makers and craftspeople, such as John
Houshmand, a Catskills, New York-based furniture maker and
