Georgetown getting it's Apple Store

Here's a rendering of what the new store will look like. You can just barely see the piece of fruit with the bite in it. Here are two more renderings from the architect, Karl Backus. No word yet on when it will open, but the design for the store was finally approved in March (I know, I know, I am a little behind the times, but I suspect most of you aren't reading for lightning fast architecture criticism) after four previous designs were denied. The design approval process alone has gone on for over a year now, and Apple purchased the property at 1229 Wisconsin Avenue back in 2007 for a cool $13.7 million. This will be the first Apple store in the District of Columbia, though there are stores in nearby Bethesda (2), Arlington (2), Annapolis, McLean and Fairfax. The current building, which has stood there for only 24 years and looks like a cheap knock-off of colonial architecture to me, will be razed for the new store. Yay!

In general, I am all for historic preservation, but clearly there's nothing historic about the actual building, just the neighborhood. Evidently the Old Georgetown Board felt that there was too much glass on the previous designs. Have these people been to an Apple Store before? If Apple could make the computers out of glass I am sure they would. Maybe they expected it to look more like the store Apple put on Regents Street in London, which I can assure you is a much more historic context. Both the stores in Georgetown and on Regents Street were designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson of Philadelphia. This firm also designed that eponymous Apple Store on 5th Avenue in New York. They have an incredible body of work- check out their site. I was most impressed by the Pixar Studios and Headquarters and The Barn at Fallingwater for the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.