Apple unveiled the soundscape of its Piazza Liberty store Sounds of nature at high altitude meet the hustle and bustle of the city

To celebrate winter and bring the mountains into the city, at Apple Piazza Liberty in Milan the mountains entered the urban space not as a postcard image, but as a collection of sounds, practices, and stories. A move that is anything but accidental, considering that the relationship between the metropolis, Alpine territories, and the mountain imaginary is set to intensify in the coming months. The occasion was a new Today at Apple session, built around a specific theme: how technology can become a discreet tool to observe, record, and convey the outdoor experience, without imposing itself on it.

The event brought different perspectives into dialogue, all united by a real, lived relationship with the mountains. The developers of PeakVisor explained how direct knowledge of Italy’s peaks guided the creation of an app now used by hikers and mountaineers across the Alpine range and beyond. Skialper, on the other hand, took center stage during the Today at Apple Spotlight with gateAway, a video project reflecting on the contemporary need for escape and on the possibility of reconnecting with the mountain’s slower rhythm starting from the city. The journey, more than the destination, becomes the core of the narrative—an idea that resonates with a historical moment in which the mountains are increasingly perceived as a cultural space, not just a sporting one.

At the heart of the initiative was also the work of Tudor Laurini, aka Klaus, who presented Morfologie Liquide, a soundscape designed to animate the steps of Piazza Liberty through the end of February. The project stems from a simple yet open-ended question: what does the mountain sound like today? The answer does not come in the form of a definition, but through sensory accumulation. Klaus recorded noises, silences, and resonances along a route that starts in Milan and reaches Monviso, using only the iPhone as a recording tool. The result is a sonic landscape that connects the water of the Piazza Liberty fountain with that flowing from the Po’s source, creating an acoustic bridge between the urban center and the Alpine environment.