Love 'em or hate 'em, Apple products are beautifully designed. So are the stores that sell them.
The company tailors each of its retail shops to the area and culture they inhabit. "It's about getting out into the street, feeling what the locals feel and trying to unlock what they miss," said Bob Bridger -- Apple's former vice president of retail real estate -- in a 2011 video. Each Apple Store is "specifically created for that location for that market, for those customers," he added.
"Our primary objective," former Senior Vice President of Retail Ron Johnson said in the video, "is to create a place that people will love."
That design ethos is clearly working. The average Apple Store generates about $6,000 per square foot in sales and single-handedly increase sales in malls by 10 percent, the Wall Street Journal reported in March.
We looked at Apple Store locations around the globe to find the most stunning, most architecturally unique, most surprising ones. Check out the photos below for a quick tour:
This location opened in 2004 in an Edwardian Period building that once housed the Thomas Cook Travel Agency. The bright lights inside the store offer a warm contrast to the dreary, grey English weather outside. In 2015, the store temporarily closed to undergo renovations that would let in more natural light from outside.
The Apple Store inside Grand Central opened in 2011. It is situated on the terminal's east and northeast balconies, which overlook the bustling main concourse of the station.
This location opened its doors in 2015. At the time, it was the largest Apple Store in Asia. It's located on West Lake, or Xihu, a historic body of water that has inspired artists for centuries. Apple's minimalist store here boasts ceilings almost 50 feet high and has no visible support columns. The vertical panels in its glass façade reach from the ground to the ceiling with no interruptions, and the interior's second level appears to float freely over the ground floor.
This store, which opened in 2010, features the now-iconic glass cylindrical structure for which Apple won a patent in 2013. The cylinder houses a glass spiral staircase leading down to the retail floor and is meant to create an "ethereal feeling."
Hong Kong's first Apple Store opened its doors in 2011. The space connects two wings of the International Financial Center shopping mall and features a glass spiral staircase. There's even an area designed specially for kids.
A renovated, century-old theater building houses this store, which opened its doors in 2013. It features a classical Greek revival façade with Ionic columns and tall windows. As an homage to the building's history, the top floors sport red-carpeted stairs, chandeliers and a theater for concerts.
This store opened in 2012 in Sanlitun, a popular outdoor shopping mall designed to be an urban open space that employs a variety of shapes and textures. The Apple Store has a glass façade that spans three sides of the building, and the company's logo is projected on a block that sits astride the store and another building in the mall.
This Apple Store opened in 2012. The surrounding area is an outdoor food and night market that has been around for over 800 years. The store boasts Asia's first three-story glass spiral staircase and has two 360-degree Genius Bars, according to The Next Web.
Located in a 1920s beaux-arts building that used to be a bank, this Apple Store opened in 2015. It features an old bank vault that's been remodeled into an Apple Watch Edition fitting room, where VIP shoppers can try on the gold device. Apple also restored the outside of the building to look like it did in the '20s.