The new Apple Sanlitun opened in Beijing today, bringing Apple’s best retail design ideas to its original home in China. Customers seized the rare opportunity to celebrate the massive new store in a year where even small wins can feel few and far between.
Special thanks to readers of 9to5Mac Weibo Sun Yihang, Kevin W, and ZhZhang_id for sending photos from Beijing!
For a few hours Wednesday night, the entire arc of Apple’s retail history in China could be summed up in a single chart. The original stainless steel Apple Sanlitun cantilevered over a catwalk stood gleaming next to a brand new flagship store, with its stone and glass walls sticking out of the adjacent plaza. As workers removed the wrappers from the new space, the old building was glowing for the last time since it became the first Apple store in China almost exactly 12 years ago.
With a multi-story pavilion layout, a tree-lined public plaza, and a massive forum for creativity, Apple Sanlitun’s new layout puts it among the greats. Its transparent 33-foot glass-paneled façade topped by a canopy sunroof carries visual lightness while bearing symbolic weight. The store has already become the focal point of the Taikoo Li Sanlitun Mall and an instant classic among Apple fans.
Two storey store floors, an outdoor space, and 185 team members await visitors. Stone stairs, an escalator, and a pedestrian bridge make the building accessible from almost anywhere in the mall. Along the southern stairs, a tiered garden filled with Sophora japonica trees and exotic plants stretches throughout the store. At the rear entrance, a stone patio dotted with benches and trees is an outdoor extension of the store’s Genius Support area.
Inside, the first floor of Apple Sanlitun is divided into two. The store front is dedicated to 15 product tables and avenues along the walls. The back of the store houses the private boardroom for business clients and special guests, designed with a unique frosted window for added privacy.
The second floor provides a quieter space for service and, one day, creative Today sessions at Apple. The massive video wall faces the plaza of the shopping center, visible from the ground to attract visitors inside and above the Forum. Apple Sanlitun’s design is comparable to Chicago’s Apple Michigan Avenue in many ways, and the parallels continue here as well. The second floor ends on a panoramic balcony overlooking Beijing. The balcony steps serve as gallery seats for Genius dating clients.
Opening a massive new store in the COVID-19 era is no easy feat. Even in Beijing, which has controlled its outbreak much more successfully than the United States, some Apple fans were wondering if the store they’d hoped for so long would open as planned. Despite the highly unusual circumstances, no details were left to chance.
Apple celebrated the arrival of Sanlitun with elaborate layered artwork covering the windows and a matching online preview. An impressive WeChat article details the design of the store. When the window decorations were removed, a gold outline of the intricate floral pattern was left on the glass, creating an effect similar to a leaded window. The outline will naturally fade over time.
An easel placed at the store’s main entrance that marks the opening is also a fully personalized work of art designed with rich texture and embossed Chinese lettering.
Wearing masks and hand sanitizer, Apple fans in Beijing lined up to see the store when it opened on Friday just before 10 a.m.Although the opening date remained a secret until just days before launch, a crowd crowded filled the entire Taikoo Li Sanlitun square.
Apple has 42 stores in mainland China and 5 in Beijing, but new openings these days are rare. Sanlitun is the first new Apple store built in China since Apple Suzhou in September 2018. It is the only Apple store in the country that has moved to a completely new structure. Three of the five locations in Beijing now offer the latest Apple Store design.
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