The person tasked with designing the Apple Store has died at the age of 85. Art Gensler was a celebrated designer who founded the world’s largest architecture firm. He designed the Apple Stores across the world for the world’s most valuable company Apple.
Gensler reportedly first met the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs at a design conference. Both were speakers at the conference and Jobs did his magic on Gensler by showing off the Apple II. Gensler went on to design Apple’s headquarters.
Initially hired by Steve Jobs
In the late 1990s, Gensler was hired to design the Apple Store after Steve Jobs returned to the dying company. The first prototype of the Apple Store was reportedly created by Gensler at the insistence of Steve Jobs for a one-on-one.
In 2018, Nob Hill Gazette reported that Gensler remembered working in a “locked, guarded warehouse” for six months. He reportedly worked every Thursday for the span of six months in a very securely guarded place. Gensler was able to create a design for the Apple Store in just a week, however Steve “Jobs would rip the plans apart.”
Gensler’s designs of course went onto become the foundation of the design of the Apple Store. The firm headed by Gensler went on to design the first 100 Apple Stores across the globe. However, the relationship between Apple and Gensler’s firm deteriorated when Microsoft hired the same design firm.
“Steve heard, got me on the phone and said, This is Steve Jobs. You’re fired.’ And Steve was right and we were wrong. After Steve’s death, our firm was rehired by Apple. But Steve was the smartest person I ever met: a demanding perfectionist and true visionary. I’ve been very blessed to work with people like that,” Gensler said.
However, shortly after the death of Steve Jobs, Gensler’s design firm was rehired by Apple.
