Upcoming Apple store in France to be nearly transparent

By Jeff Hughes January 16, 2012

Europe’s getting a fancy counterpart to New York’s Fifth Avenue flagship Apple Store. The building will be erected in southern France, and will be almost transparent.

The new Apple store will be coming to Aix en Provence in France, and will be occupying the spot where a tourism building currently exists; near the Place du General de Gaulle. A large portion of the see-through structure will consist of glass. The rendering of the planned Apple Store shows only a one-level building, smaller than the Fifth Avenue store; the Aix en Provence store will have three transparent walls and a tan-looking rear wall surrounded by a stone plaza. The rendering does not show any Apple-related logos.

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According to ifoApplestore.com, “the city required Apple to build to new earthquake standards, and harmonize with the surrounding picturesque streets…the area to the west of the future store has been recently reconstructed with many upscale shops from international retailers.” Apple is expected to open up the new store location by the end of this year, or perhaps in early 2013.

Apple’s international goals also include Switzerland, with its fourth store in the country set for the city of Basel. The building will have be two-levels, each approximately 5,000 square feet for the sales floors. The first sales floor will have twelve display tables, and the next will feature Genius Bars. Macrumors believes the Basel store may open in 2013.

As of 2012, Apple has opened 361 of its retail stores all over the world. The company opened one of it’s latest, and definitely largest, Apple stores in New York’s Grand Central station last month. The 23,000-sq-foot store was reportedly mobbed by hundreds on the day of its opening.

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Apple

Former Digital Trends Contributor

I'm a SF Bay Area-based writer/ninja that loves anything geek, tech, comic, social media or gaming-related.

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