The architecture firm translated Apple?s obsessively minimalist product designs into a trademark architectural language I was, I will admit, a latecomer to the cult of Apple. But when I finally got there, I was a goner. After all, I?m a design geek, and my MacBook and iPhone?and even my now-ancient iPod?are things of beauty, lean and clean in their utter lack of extraneous elements. But it wasn?t just the seductive cool of the company?s products that won me over; it was their stores, too?spaces and structures that matched the finely detailed minimalism of the products they showed, but that still felt comfortable and welcoming.
Interestingly enough, given our obsession with designers as celebrities, as Apple rolled out store after store around the world, there was never much discussion of just who made this design magic happen. Apple?s genius was to make state-of-the art products that were both beautiful and user-friendly, but it wasn?t necessarily easy to translate the company?s perfectionist aesthetic into an architectural vocabulary that was humane instead of chilly. That?s where Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ) came in. Ever since the first freestanding Apple store opened on Spring Street in Manhattan in 2001, BCJ?s elegant-but-tactile modernism has been instrumental in building the Apple brand?in about 70 stores around the world to date.
The Soho location?in a neoclassical building formerly home to a post office?was the first of the company?s "high-profile"...