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Two Apple Stores Rated In Top 150 Favorite American Architecture

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Apr 12, 2001
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In a poll by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Americans found the 5th Avenue Apple Store in New York City, New York, to be the 53rd favorite example of architecture in America. The Apple Store beat out other locations such as the New York Plaza Hotel (#81), Yankee Stadium (#84), Baltimore’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards (122nd), and Apple's SoHo Apple Store (#141).

The list was lead by the Empire State Building (#1), the White House (#2), and the Washington National Cathedral (#3). The full list can be found here.

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Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2007/02/08/two-apple-stores-rated-in-top-150-favorite-american-architecture/
Wasn't Portland, OR giving Apple a hard time opening a store there (to the point Apple just gave up) because they didn't like any of Apple's store designs?
 
do replicas of famous french architecture really deserve recognition?

I love the 5th ave store, but it's merely a play on the design of the louvre in Paris. Nice work steve, but you can't exactly get credit for a design adaptation can you? (particularly in an "american architecture" context)
 
brucku said:
do replicas of famous french architecture really deserve recognition?

I love the 5th ave store, but it's merely a play on the design of the louvre in Paris. Nice work steve, but you can't exactly get credit for a design adaptation can you? (particularly in an "american architecture" context)
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I don't think you can call Pei's Louvre additions "french architecture" as he is a Chinese American. IMHO, most of architecture is play, play of basic principles, materials and spaces.
 
This whole "architecture" list is crap. It looks more like a "Patriotic Architecture" list. Placing the once hideous WT building and the kitsch white house before world class examples of architecture by Mies, Konig, Wright, Kahn and so on...... and the Apple store is nice, but not that special...
 
s10 said:
This whole "architecture" list is crap. It looks more like a "Patriotic Architecture" list. Placing the once hideous WT building and the kitsch white house before world class examples of architecture by Mies, Konig, Wright, Kahn and so on...... and the Apple store is nice, but not that special...
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They might have asked members, "What is your favorite building," not, "what is your favorite design?"

That question makes the list more plausible.

I'm personally fond of the BMW plant is Germany.
 
ethernet76 said:
They might have asked members, "What is your favorite building," not, "what is your favorite design?"
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I have to agree. The buildings listed show impressive favor for people, but as for design, the list would look different. Who did they ask anyway? Actual architechs or average joe/jane? I'm not dissin' :apple: in any way. I like the look of the 5th Ave. store, but some of the other buildings' designs goes well beyond :apple: stores.
 
s10 said:
This whole "architecture" list is crap. It looks more like a "Patriotic Architecture" list. Placing the once hideous WT building and the kitsch white house before world class examples of architecture by Mies, Konig, Wright, Kahn and so on...... and the Apple store is nice, but not that special...
Click to expand...

This just goes to show that the general public does not agree with "modernist" architects. Regular people project emotion onto buildings, and if the building doesn't create some emotion, the people don't like it. Architects of today design buildings to get published and receive honor and glory from their fellow architects while the general public despises their buildings. I don't agree with much of the philosophy of architects today.

Peace said:
Downtown Portland has an Apple Store as does Tigard and another suburb.
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Those two stores in Portland are both in Malls. The new one they proposed was going to be it's own building, not unlike the Apple store on Michigan Ave. in Chicago. Portland disapproved of the Apple designs because they proposed it in a historical district (if I remember correctly) and a big metal cube did not win them over.
 
I'd love to see a stand-alone Apple store in my hometown of Kennesaw, GA. There's tons of real estate right near the university and I'm sure it's a market just waiting to be tapped. They already have 3 in the Atlanta area at the higher end malls so I doubt it'll happen.
 
Most of the Apple stores I've been in have simply had large, grey facades with an Apple cut out in it. I certainly am not a fan of that style. I can only assume than when they move into an old building in an old part of town, that they just bolt that over the old facade, such that when they move back out, the building can retain it's original design.
 
brucku said:
do replicas of famous french architecture really deserve recognition?

I love the 5th ave store, but it's merely a play on the design of the louvre in Paris. Nice work steve, but you can't exactly get credit for a design adaptation can you? (particularly in an "american architecture" context)
Click to expand...

And here I thought you were referring to the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas (#22). I also wasn't aware that Steve Jobs designed any of the Apple stores. You learn something new every day!
 
mainstreetmark said:
Most of the Apple stores I've been in have simply had large, grey facades with an Apple cut out in it. I certainly am not a fan of that style. I can only assume than when they move into an old building in an old part of town, that they just bolt that over the old facade, such that when they move back out, the building can retain it's original design.
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Sounds like putting a Mac Pro aluminum housing around some beige Dell.
 
s10 said:
This whole "architecture" list is crap. It looks more like a "Patriotic Architecture" list. Placing the once hideous WT building and the kitsch white house before world class examples of architecture by Mies, Konig, Wright, Kahn and so on...... and the Apple store is nice, but not that special...
Click to expand...

I think it's interesting. Sure, this poll is a popularity contest, but that's what it is intended to be, and in truth architects rarely ask people what they actually like. When they do ask, the results are a fascinating mix of high and low art.

I don't agree that the White House is kitsch architecture, BTW. The World Trade Center, though it was quite awful, grew in the public's imagination for obvious reasons. Architecture is not just objects, it's how people feel about them.
 
siurpeeman said:
this guy recaps it fairly well.

http://www.cabel.name/2006/07/apple-store-that-wasnt.html
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That was an interesting read. I'm originally from the Portland and I'm an architecture student, so I'm pretty interested in this whole debate. I've been taught (and I believe) that you don't just design and build a building for a specific purpose and use, but think ahead to any future use the building might have. Not that Apple will go out of business, but what if they need to move somewhere bigger? My favorite buildings are buildings that can be used as just about anything. My favorite Apple store is the one in London, and my least favorite Apple stores are any of the the ones that Apple has built from "scratch"...
 
The French?

brucku said:
do replicas of famous french architecture really deserve recognition?

I love the 5th ave store, but it's merely a play on the design of the louvre in Paris. Nice work steve, but you can't exactly get credit for a design adaptation can you? (particularly in an "american architecture" context)
Click to expand...

French architecture... more like Greek Roman Egyptian and the Chinese... the real architects of the world...

Anyway, that list is a bunch of crap. I studied engineering and architecture before I changed my major and those top 3 building aren't that special. The Empire State Building is by far the ugliest skyscraper in the nation. How about the Guggenheim?
 
Digital Skunk said:
Anyway, that list is a bunch of crap. I studied engineering and architecture before I changed my major and those top 3 building aren't that special. The Empire State Building is by far the ugliest skyscraper in the nation. How about the Guggenheim?
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Like I said before, these buildings actually mean something to people. Architects have tried so long to erase any emotion out of architecture that they don't understand how normal everyday people see buildings. The whole dogma of modern architecture is at best, just as bad as the people like Charles Garnier and the Académie des Beaux-Arts (the Paris Opera in particular). They were the complete opposite of the modernist way of thinking and is what drove people to turn to cold, emotionless architecture. Its like we are swinging from one extreme to another throughout history, and it's only going to swing back in the near future, and all this "wonderful" architecture that Architects love today will be looked on with different eyes.
 
Absolutely!

adrianblaine said:
Like I said before, these buildings actually mean something to people. Architects have tried so long to erase any emotion out of architecture that they don't understand how normal everyday people see buildings. The whole dogma of modern architecture is at best, just as bad as the people like Charles Garnier and the Académie des Beaux-Arts (the Paris Opera in particular). They were the complete opposite of the modernist way of thinking and is what drove people to turn to cold, emotionless architecture. Its like we are swinging from one extreme to another throughout history, and it's only going to swing back in the near future, and all this "wonderful" architecture that Architects love today will be looked on with different eyes.
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You're right the pendulum is swinging back toward true design. The buildings that are being constructed now (that will be finished by the turn of the decade) have a lot of design flair in them. Not cold and emtionless steel. The WTC was an ugly building, engineering marvel that it was, it was still quite bland. It wasn't meant to be beautiful. The Petronus Towers in Malaysia, (the now tallest buildings in the world by livable space) has the culture of the nation built in to it. Wonderful design that incorporates all aspects of the Muslim religion and the Malaysian way of life. Here in Baltimore Maryland, we have the nations tallest five sided building, it's also very ugly, but at least it has five sides, which sets it apart from the Empire State Building, which was just another engineering marvel (for its time) but far from an architectual masterpiece.

Sears Tower Gargoyles??? :confused: :confused: come on... anything else would do... but they do say "favorite" piece of architecture, not GOOD Piece of Architecture.
 
Digital Skunk said:
The WTC was an ugly building, engineering marvel that it was, it was still quite bland. It wasn't meant to be beautiful.
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Now, that isn't quite true. The World Trade Center towers were meant to be appreciated, like most Modern architecture, as abstract, sculptural objects. From the New Jersey side of the river they were actually somewhat interesting in this respect. It was up close and functionally that they were hideous. The main difference in the way we're starting to design buildings today, compared to the pure Modernist dictum of at work during the 1960s, is a matter of context and human scale.
 
brucku said:
do replicas of famous french architecture really deserve recognition?
Click to expand...
What about replicas of Irish architecture (the White House), or Burgundy Gothic Revival (the National Cathedral), or Roman Classical (the Capitol), or Monticello (the Jefferson Memorial, and Monticello itself was a Palladian revival)...

Everything is an adaptation of or play upon something else.
 
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