The neighborhood surrounding Sants Estación, Barcelona’s main railway station west of the city center, is a quiet one, but the arrival of the Nobu Hotel Barcelona has invigorated it with fresh energy. “It has really changed the area and is bringing a lot of traffic,” says Eva Longoria, principal and studio leader of Rockwell Group’s Madrid office.
Prior to its glamorous makeover, the building was “a fairly banal tower that didn’t have much character. It had seen much better days,” says Rockwell Group partner and studio leader Greg Keffer, so one of the firm’s biggest challenges was “making the tower a destination,” adds Longoria. “Many people on that side of the city go to the other for dinner. Now it is happening in the opposite direction, too.”
The lobby features a dramatic curving staircase and a meditative hanging abstract brushstroke art installation made of floating charred wood pieces
A chic outpost of Nobu, the Japanese-Peruvian restaurant launched by celebrity chef Nobu Matsuhisa in 1994 (Rockwell Group designed the very first one in New York, kicking off a nearly 30-year collaboration) attracts locals to the 259-room hotel’s 23rd floor, yet Rockwell Group’s dramatic design scheme begins to captivate from the façade.
Bamboo trees forge a serene link between the street and the entry, where a vivid orange-hued rope screen beckons behind glass. Referencing Shinto gates, this woven installation also meanders inside from the porte-cochère, creating a sense of “volumetric play,” says Keffer. “The idea that craft is front and center is pretty powerful.”
Bringing another theatrical jolt to the double-height lobby is a serpentine staircase cut through by a meditative hanging abstract brushstroke art installation comprising floating charred wood pieces. Adjacent to it is Kozara, the sake and cocktail bar covered in a trellis-like gridded wood ceiling and two broad columns that pay tribute to the Japanese ritual of kintsugi, wherein broken pottery is repaired with metal-dusted lacquer.
Sitting atop the building, the Nobu restaurant bar stars columns clad in a sculptural blue and white ceramic pattern, another nod to kintsugi
Nods to kintsugi are even more prevalent upstairs at the restaurant. Diners sit underneath a ceiling of live-edge walnut punctuated by snaking crevices of gold. Although the mighty views filling the glass walls firmly anchor diners in Barcelona, it’s the onyx bar that most poignantly captures the city’s distinct cultural roots with its “Gaudí moment,” as Longoria describes it.
Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí’s iconic Parc Güell, some 20 minutes north of the hotel, is rife with vibrant mosaics and fluid curves that mimic nature. To conjure the whimsical park, the bar’s kintsugi-reminiscent column is swathed in sculptural fragments and climbs up to a cracked blue ceramic ceiling.
When designing Nobu properties, it’s a priority for Rockwell Group to honor the brand’s defining Japanese aesthetic through elements like millwork walls and glimmering bronze detailing in guestrooms and suites, as well as the soul of its location. “When we thought about what could represent the city, it was surprising that kintsugi led directly to Barcelona,” explains Keffer. “It’s always a fun discovery when you delve in and find unexpected connections.”
This article originally appeared in HD’s August 2022 issue.
