Before and leading up to the creation of the Air Max 1, Nike designer Tinker Hatfield became heavily inspired by the Pompidou Centre in Paris, France. As one of the most polarizing architectural structures in the world, the Pompidou Centre was and is infamous for its exposure and celebration of typically internal building elements. Perhaps drawing on that as inspiration, Hatfield designed the Air Max 1 with a visible air pocket in the heel of the shoe, making it the first of its kind to showcase the Max Air technology that had traditionally been housed and hidden in previous sneaker models.