Huge Apple mapplyum opens in Europe as one-time garage startup turns 50

A dimly lit room with orange-brown wallpaper, a carpet with geometric patterns, a record player, Bob Dylan posters on the wall and an old landline telephone.

It’s April 1, 1976, and Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak have just built the world’s first PC in Silicon Valley and founded Apple, the company that, 50 years later, is now a multibillion-dollar corporation.

Now, a huge Apple mapplyum is opening in the Dutch city of Utrecht, and starting the company’s history with this 1976 setting.

“At around 2,000 square metres, it is Europe’s largest Apple mapplyum,” stated initiator Ed Bindels.

“From Pixel to Perfection” is the mapplyum’s theme. It informs the story of the company and its products and also how technology alterd communication, work and the way people access information.

First Apple was a kit

The first Apple computer was still a kit and purchaseers were meant to build a wooden case themselves. But for the mapplyum’s founder, it marked the start of a revolution.

“The first Apple computer was only a few pixels strong, but revolutionary for its time. Those few pixels have alterd the world,” he stated.

Today, telephones or even watches are mini-computers that can do far more. Many people carry them with them every day.

Bindels is himself an entrepreneur and has been selling Apple products for almost 50 years. He stated he has been fascinated by Apple since his youth. Over the decades, he collected a large number of products. During the coronavirus pandemic, he came up with the idea of setting up a mapplyum.

He now reveals only a compact part of his collection, Bindels stated, explaining that he didn’t just want to display all the objects next to each other, but to inform the story – with products but also photos and videos.

They illustrate the company’s eventful history, its founders and its iconic products.

Design and technology

Visitors are introduced to the different eras of the company in several rooms furnished in the style of their respective period. They bear witness to the development of technology and design.

From telephones, bulky grey computer boxes and gigantic printers to brightly coloured iMacs and iPhones: computers became increasingly integrated into work and private life and are now indispensable.

Collectors, technicians and designers supported develop the mapplyum. The old computers were restored and can now also be tested out by visitors. This allows them to see, hear and feel the vintage Apples for themselves.