'Truly international' Piazza del Liberty Apple Store in Milan, Italy opening soon

On Monday, Apple declared that the Piazza del Liberty Apple Retail store in Milan, Italy that was made public with planning documents in January will be opening soon.

The store, occupying the location previously held by the Apollo Spazio Cinema, was called "ambitious and truly international" by planning officials when Apple proposed the venue in January. In addition to a complete renovation of the Apollo cinema interior, Apple has lowered the central area of Piazza del Liberty to make way for an outdoor amphitheater with broad terraced stairs.

Acting as the store's grand entryway is a tall glass waterfall and water bowls that anchor one end of the amphitheater. Stairs and an elevator lead down into the showroom floor below.

The space will serve as both an entrance into the store and a public space for hosting cultural events.

As part of the agreement to use Piazza del Liberty, Apple must pay the city a one-time fee of 768,732 euros to offset costs the administration previously incurred. In addition, Apple will pay an annual usage fee of 127,435 euros.

The store is designed by Foster + Partners, the same firm late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs tapped to work on the company's Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.

9 Comments

Rayz2016 6957 comments · 8 Years

About 7 years ago

Bloody hell … :-/

Are they building stores or art galleries.

Or both.

MacPro 19836 comments · 18 Years

Rayz2016 said:

Bloody hell … :-/

Are they building stores or art galleries.

Or both.

It's just missing Steve's street sign showing the intersection of the Liberal Arts and the Sciences to answer your question. ;)

sagan_student 187 comments · 15 Years

This is one avenue in which all other tech companies are either falling behind on or don't understand what Apple is doing; which is to say that Apple appears to be really establishing themselves as a culture. This, in my opinion, would definitely help prevent it from becoming the next has been and keep it around for the long haul.

flaneur 4525 comments · 14 Years

sagan_student said:

This is one avenue in which all other tech companies are either falling behind on or don't understand what Apple is doing; which is to say that Apple appears to be really establishing themselves as a culture. This, in my opinion, would definitely help prevent it from becoming the next has been and keep it around for the long haul.

A good point. As for the previous comments, art galleries or retail stores or both, what they're really doing is building nodes in the noösphere, the only places where new knowledge technology is showcased for hands-on tryout.

The unique Apple contribution is in making both the technology and the "temple" of its display attractive, magnetic, even irresistible. You can trace this attractiveness imperative back to Steve Jobs and his idyllic upbringing by his craftsman father in their Eichler home in the Silicon Valley of the new clean technology of information processing, and to the chemical enlightnment that was the environment of the counterculure in that part of California at the time.