Poet and activist Kevin Coval will host an event about “cultivating your voice,” employees said, while tech incubator 1871 will host one about how to jumpstart your startup. To celebrate the opening, Apple is partnering with a variety of cultural and tech players in the city to host a month-long series of events. (The roof is a carbon fiber replica of a Mac laptop.) Much of the minimalist ethos remains, however The floor, made of Chinese granite, and the walls, wrapped in a Castellana stone from Bari, Italy, are gray-flecked white. In general, the new space has more warm wood accents than the original all-white stores the interior ceiling is American white oak. The store employs 250 people-a far cry from the 58 workers the original Michigan Avenue store opened with in 2003, Ahrendts said.Īpple store visitors will recognize the table layout from the old store, though the previously white tables are now made of European white oak. Apple created new positions, called “creative pros,” to help customers with each specific area. The sales floor is divided into spaces devoted to music, photography and augmented reality. The room is free for anyone to use, store employees said. A quieter room in the back, dubbed the boardroom, offers a sleek living-room-style space and conference table for entrepreneurs and businesses to hold meetings. In the heart of the store's lower level, the main retail space is pushed back, away from the riverfront, so that the area directly in front of the water is left open for wood- and leather-cube seating and a huge flatscreen where Apple will host community gatherings. The mayor's office “had a vision” about reinvigorating the Chicago River and the Riverwalk, “and so that was why we came to this location,” she said. “The glass is nothing.” He described the space as “gentle and comfortable,” saying he was opposed to grand architectural gestures.Īhrendts nodded to Mayor Rahm Emanuel as a driving force in bringing the tech giant down to the river. “It's not about the glass,” Behling said. The idea was to build something that could “gently step down to the river's edge” and provide as little distinction between indoors and outdoors as possible.

“This is actually the place where the first settlers in Chicago started to settle down, so we thought it very significant,” added Stefan Behling, Apple's longtime architect. “This is our dream-a totally open, transparent space.” Michigan Ave.-which is now closed-was the brand's first flagship store, so it was fitting that the city plays host to the company's first next-generation flagship. She said Chicago's original Apple store at 679 N. “This has been three years in the making,” said Angela Ahrendts, Apple's senior vice president of retail, as she led a media tour of the roughly 25,000-square-foot space. An expansive outdoor courtyard is open to the public at all times. Two granite staircases on either side of the entrance descend to a lower level where the bulk of the retail space sits directly at river level. The entrance to the two-story, floor-to-ceiling glass structure opens off Pioneer Court, the plaza immediately south of Tribune Tower, where the Chicago River meets Michigan Avenue.

Old apple store chicago