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Project: NikeTown, New York City
Client: Nike, Inc.
Architectural, Media, and Conceptual Design: Nike Design Team--Gordon Thompson, vice president, design; John Hoke, creative director, image design; David Poremba, media design director; Mark Mullen, retail media director; Val Taylor Smith, image design director
Architects: Brian McFarland, Michael LeClere (New York City); BOORA Architects (Portland, Ore.)
Engineers: Thornton-Tomasetti (structural); Edwards and Zuck (mechanical/electrical)
Project Manager: Bennis & Reissman
General Contractor: F.J. Sciame Construction Co.
If selling sneakers can be elevated to an art form, Nike has done it with the creation of its new flagship store on East 57th Street in New York City. The athletic footwear giant has erected its latest NikeTown, a simultaneously nostalgic and high-tech retail monument to sports and sports equipment, near Fifth Avenue in one of the world's toniest and most expensive shopping districts.
Eight years in the planning, the NikeTown building was constructed on a site formerly occupied by the Bonwit Teller department store. Nike razed the original structure to start fresh. ``We looked at tons of other sites, but the first four floors of a skyscraper would never say what we wanted to say,'' explains Gordon Thompson, Nike vice president of research, design and development, who headed the store's in-house design team.
Architecture as marketing tool
The NikeTown building is puzzling as a piece of architecture at first glance, but makes sense when considered in the light of its purpose: to demonstrate Nike's prominent place in the world of sports, and to generously display the breadth of Nike products. To help create a connection to New York City's architecturaland sports history, Nike designers modeled the building's facade and exterior shell on the image of a pre-war, New York City high...