Rather than overpower one of the world’s great treasures, the new Carrousel du Louvre (Paris ) Apple store presents a proper yet distinctive appearance. The architects have taken a very minimalist approach to the underground storefront, essentially just using glass to fill open spaces in the perimeter walls facing a huge, inverted glass triangle that showers the store with soft light. None of the original stone walls were touched, a sign of remarkable restraint, even though the walls only date to the 1980s when the underground shopping center was built. There are no outward changes to the structure or façade that indicates “Apple.” Inside, however, the traditional design emerges: stone floors, wood tables, a spiral glass staircase to a mezzanine level, a large back-lit Apple logo suspended overheard, and lots of stainless steel.
I’m posting on-going news via twitter.com/ifostore, including videos if something interesting happens.
View the first photos of the store and its interior. Also read the MacGeneration story on the press briefing, during which Sr. V-P Retail Ron Johnson said that the Montpelier story will open November 14th, and for the first time confirmed the Rue Halévy store, and that it will open in summer 2010. MacPlus.net also has a story and video of Ron Johnson.
The Carrousel du Louvre is open nightly from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and advertises 45 “boutiques and restaurants.” The Apple store Wi-Fi network is operating and open, and is reachable from the mezzanine food court down the hallway. There’s no word on where or when the waiting line will form, or how soon it might be able to move inside on Saturday morning. The weather is cold (40s) and windy, but it drizzled only slightly Thursday evening.
Foot traffic in front of the store is continuous, almost all from visitors to the great Louvre Museum, but also from those who love to shop. If you’re a retailer and can’t be on the Champs Elysees, then you should be here, both for the traffic and the prestige.
The store’s setting comes on many levels. First, there are the ground-level brown stone buildings of the Louvre Museum. Some of the structures date to 1200, but most are of the 1700s, and exude history. The scale and size of the buildings is almost overwhelming, and surrounds the next setting—the I.M. Pei-designed glass pyramid visitor entrance to the museum. Designed and built in the 1980s, the modern design created storms of controversy when it was proposed—too new, critics said. The practical advantages of a new and underground visitor center won the debate, creating one what’s considered to be the best example of old and new structures co-existing.
Next, adjacent to the visitor center the government installed a two-story shopping center, apparently hoping to generate additional revenue. Today, the mix of retailers is a cross between high-end an low-brow stores. A Virgin store is directly across from Apple, with Swarovski and L’Occitane down the hallway. Further down the hall and around the bend, the stores look more those you’d find walking to catch a subway train.
But the huge hall where Apple’s store is located is as grand as the ground-level glass pyramid. In fact, the hall has its own inverted pyramid, which falls from the open ceiling to create a luminous light that brightens up the Apple storefront. It’s a place I call Pyramid Hall.
The hall is the crossroads for the Carrousel du Louvre, with hallways leading in four directions, including to the metal detectors for the museum itself. Large tours groups come by, led by a guide with her hand upraised. Everyone behind her is listening to a recorded description of the artworks. Few turned or noticed the Apple store on Thursday afternoon because they’re on a tight schedule. Most were headed to the museum line where visitor bags were being X-ray’d.
The hallway also attracts families on vacation, and groups of two or three friends who are vacationing in Paris, who just have to see the Louvre. These people might linger longer in Pyramid Hall, notice the Apple store and take a photo or two.
The Apple storefront is really only a single, 30-foot tall window, flanked by two narrow entrances. The reaminder of the store is the original, cream-color stone siding panels that mark the other retailers in the mall. Each entrance door leads into a two-story space that mirrors the scale of the main hall.
The glass staircase is prominent in the middle of this room, and leads up to the mezzanine, which like other two-level stores, includes the Genius Bar (actually two bars), iPods and iPhones, training tables, software and accessories.
The staircase is one of two varieties at Apple stores: this one is steel rod-supported, rather than base-supported. It ascends to the right, exactly like the first spiral staircase installed at Shinsaibashi (Osaka, Japan). Interestingly, the stairway entrance faces the inside of the store, preventing curious visitors from walking directly inside the store and then upstairs. Instead, they must walk nearly around to the other side of the staircase to ascend.
Beyond that main space, there is a smaller room to the right as your come in, also 30-feet tall. Apple has outfitted this room with sidewall display counters and a center wood table. Like the storefront, this side room also has a 30-foot tall window, but also has two narrower windows at an angle.
On Thursday afternoon, there were about 40 store employees inside wearing bright-red shirts with white lettering. Around 3 p.m. a group of men in business suits entered the store to the yells and chants of the employees. An hour later, the visitors were still touring the store and talking to the staffers. By 5 p.m. there was another group of people who were served champagne.
Those leaving the party and drinks were given plastic Apple shopping bags with pyramid-shaped white boxes, presumably containing the commemorative T-shirts that will be handed out to grand opening visitors on Saturday.
Sr. V-P Retail Ron Johnson appeared with Steve Cano, Sr. Director of International Retail. Other members of the retail store design team and the architects are also here for the grand opening.
To say that the store itself is spectacular would be inaccurate. To even say that within Pyramid Hall the store is a stand-out would be wrong. But taken in all the context that France, Paris and the Louvre offer, it’s a remarkable place. It fits simply and unobtrusively into centuries of history, but still manages to carry the Apple brand to a new country.
