Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iBlue

macrumors Core
Mar 17, 2005
19,180
15
London, England
Actually: Apple didn't hire me. Worse: Apple refused to host me at the press opening, for unknown reasons. Happily they uncovered the windows the day before the opening, that's how I could make this shot :)

Well, it's a great shot.

I love how Apple tend to have such pretty staircases. This has to be the prettiest I've ever seen.
 

MonkeySee....

macrumors 68040
Sep 24, 2010
3,858
437
UK
No wonder you're out of breath you'd have to move it. They don't have a store in Oxford Street, it's Regents Street....

picky, picky....

Haha I was thinking Regent Street but i'm sure I got off the tube at Oxford street. My bad. I rarely go into london as its a bit of a hassle. I'm not that far from you :)
 

GenesisST

macrumors 68000
Jan 23, 2006
1,802
1,055
Where I live
I don't get it , Apple claim to be this great eco friendly environmental company and now they are wasting up the Earth's precious sand resources on fancy pants staircases?

First they've been wilfully squandering silicon on their integrated circuits, and now this.

What will our grandchildren use to make sandcastles on the beach?

lol... I'm always amazed at how many people don't get jokes on this site...
 

Arran

macrumors 601
Mar 7, 2008
4,846
3,779
Atlanta, USA
I love glass and I love spiral staircases - but I'm not mad on this combo. I'll admit it's an engineering tour-de-force, but aesthetically, it's conflicted. Spirals can be gorgeous, but the purity of the spiral form is completely lost in the muddle of individual glass panels, gracelessly bolted together with an odd assortment of metal hardware.

Now, if they could make it out of a single piece of glass (something like a huge ice sculpture) then I'd be in. As it is, I wouldn't give it house-room.
 

jebarne

macrumors newbie
Jun 8, 2004
15
5
Cary, NC
Stunning Photo

Reminds me of a story I heard when I got my first management job. I was having lunch with the Regional VP of sales and he said, "A company is like a transparent glass staircase. The guy at the top looks down and all he sees are heads. The guys at the bottom look up and all they see are ...."
 

burnout8488

macrumors 6502a
May 8, 2011
575
79
Endwell, NY
To be honest, I don't quite understand all the awe. Both the 5th Ave. and Upper West Sides stores have the exact same staircase, and the Chelsea store has one that connects 3 levels. Within the historic building, okay, I get it, but aren't there other stores outside NYC that have these staircases?

Agreed, I've been on all three of those! Plus, the 5th ave store has an elevator in the middle of the staircase!
 

kiljoy616

macrumors 68000
Apr 17, 2008
1,795
0
USA
Absolutely incredible, would make me want to buy in that store. To bad the one I go is simple box. :(
 

RussUK

macrumors newbie
Sep 2, 2011
3
0
Actually: Apple didn't hire me. Worse: Apple refused to host me at the press opening, for unknown reasons. Happily they uncovered the windows the day before the opening, that's how I could make this shot :)

Perhaps because Apple thought you would breach the confidentiality agreement?
 

Gasu E.

macrumors 603
Mar 20, 2004
5,029
3,145
Not far from Boston, MA.
and this is what the Apple haters just don't get. Apple put effort into their **** :p

Well, so do I, when I don't get enough fiber. :(

----------

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)



Yeh its much better if you chop down some trees and make it from wood?????? If ur joking i dont see the joke, if ur serious, Really?????

Not sure if serious. His humor was pretty obvious. If you are carrying the joke further, you have me fooled-- well done.
 

DroidRules

macrumors 65816
Aug 10, 2010
1,006
1
Yeah for the silly Americans GB is on the 2nd floor. Every American needs to live in Europe at least for a bit of their life IMHO.

I'm not a huge fan of the look of that store. Looks like it's trying to hard to be elegant. To each his own though.
 

oldMac

macrumors 6502a
Oct 25, 2001
543
53
From what I can see, the glass central cylinder column for the base support and and the outer panes is held by the several spiraling 2" thick glass stairs. It seems to support itself and gives an illusion of whats holding it together without falling.

Yes. I kept looking a the photo. It's obvious that the inside stairs are supported by the cylinder. But it's not obvious in the photo what is supporting the outside.

I would likely feel different if I saw it in person, but my gut reaction is that this does not look very safe.
 

righteye

macrumors 6502
Aug 29, 2011
337
47
London
Quote:
Originally Posted by fesoj
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I imagine everyone using those stairs will be wearing pants?

"Pants" in the UK means underwear and i definitely think you would want to be wearing those walking up those stairs if not wearing trousers.
 
Last edited:

JAT

macrumors 603
Dec 31, 2001
6,473
124
Mpls, MN
Yes. I kept looking a the photo. It's obvious that the inside stairs are supported by the cylinder. But it's not obvious in the photo what is supporting the outside.

I would likely feel different if I saw it in person, but my gut reaction is that this does not look very safe.

It's attached to the ceiling. I believe you can see the anchors in the photo, presumably there are metal cables.
 

VideoFreek

Contributor
May 12, 2007
577
180
Philly
I happen to be in Amsterdam this weekend, staying about 2 blocks from the store. I walked past it a couple of time before realizing what it was--the outside signage is very discreet, presumably out of sensitivity for the historical building it's in. I went in today and this is a very beautiful store, extremely spacious inside. Even with opening-weekend crowds, it did not feel packed at all.
 

citizenbfk

macrumors newbie
May 6, 2010
8
0
Rural, Arizona, USA
Beautiful Staircase! Beautiful picture!

This 'extra effort,' to make something special, something nice is one of the key reasons, I think, for Apple's now acknowledged great success (and so many satisfied customers).

They are now on the verge of being the first $1 Trillion Dollar company, currently the richest public company in the USA. (Despite all the *hit we've had to listen to for 10-20 years).

Re: glass. They send space ships into orbit that have glass windows, so the tech must be there to make it super strong.
Plus we hear the term 'gorilla glass,' and their are bathroom scales with glass tops -- scary at first, but feel great in bare feet.

Re: wear pants. lol. Leave it to MacRumors readers to think of something that perhaps the engineers did not.

It's nice that such a great store is in Amsterdam (London, and many in USA, etc.) -- and perhaps the Dutch can deal with see-through stairs better than most.

Humm...perhaps 'walking the stairs,' might become a term like 'to walk the plank.'
 

0000757

macrumors 68040
Dec 16, 2011
3,894
850
Stunning...

That's beautiful...

Our local Apple Store just looks like this:

photo_westtownmall.jpg


It barely stands out. I wish he had a extravagant Apple store like the NYC location, a beautiful architect-statement like the Carrousel de Louvre Apple Store in Paris, or a stunning classical-style building like the Amsterdam location. Apple Stores (along with Kurt Geiger stores) are some of the most beautiful places on Earth.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.