FORTUNE — By the time Apple (AAPL) opened the doors to the first company-owned Apple Store in Turkey — and its first in Eastern Europe — a crowd estimated at 450 had joined the two-story queue that wrapped around the store twice, indoors and out, for a free T-shirt and a chance to check out the latest Apple products.
According to ifoapplestore‘s Gary Allen, who attended the opening at Istanbul’s fashionable Zorlu Center, the Foster + Partners design includes the most glass of any store in Apple’s retail chain.
“The compact, two-level store,” he wrote, “is topped by a first-ever rectangular ‘lantern’ composed of four single panes of glass and a white roof. Portions of the store are visible through the windows from the plaza level… The plaza level lantern (an architectural term) is surrounded by a water fountain constructed of black stone. The water is pumped over the edge of the fountain in an ‘infinity’ effect.”
For the record, that makes 424 Apple Stores in 15 countries.
The Istanbul opening was well documented on YouTube. A sample:
http://youtu.be/VbqscMB3XKs
