First Apple Store in Japan to Be Demolished –

The building in Tokyo’s Ginza district that houses the first Apple Store to open in Japan — in 2003, when it was also the first Apple Store outside of the United States — will be demolished later this year.

When Apple Ginza opened on November 30, 2003, it became the 71st Apple Store (there are now more than 500), but only the first outside of the US, where at the time most of the tech company’s stores were located in shopping malls. Anticipation was so great for the grand opening that roughly 2,500 people waited in the rain in a line that stretched for blocks around Ginza. 

Like most Apple Stores in the aughts, Apple Ginza was designed by Pennsylvania’s Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, which subsequently designed at least seven retails stores for Apple in Japan. Apple’s five-story Tokyo flagship was designed as a glass skin in front of an existing building: the 8-story Sayegusa Building built in 1967, according to Japan Property Central’s report on the forthcoming demolition.