Apple’s sleek retail stores have been central in their move toward global domination and architecture has been a powerful weapon.
Bay Area firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson established the company’s signature design style in the early ‘00s, but the responsibility for maintaining and updating Apple’s look has in recent years fallen to London-based Pritzker Prize-winning architect Norman Foster’s studio, Foster + Partners (the firm is hard at work designing a UFO-like new headquarters for Apple in Cupertino, California, which looks pretty cool in this drone video).
Apple’s store in central London, which sits behind an impressive, Grade II-listed Neoclassical facade, (the company’s first to open in the English capital when it arrived in 2004) just got a facelift as part of that baton passing, with Foster + Partners creating a more open, airy space by excising a mezzanine level that once snaked along the outer edge of the store.
Now, the store has a tripartite arrangement, with three spaces for disparate functions including seating (called “the Avenue” and meant to mimic a public throughway); “the Forum,” an area for events; and “the Boardroom,” a space for Apple retail employees to provide trainings and other services.
Take a look around below and read more about the architectural language of Apple here.
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