From branded initiatives to art installations, bespoke sound systems, and immersive playback experiences, soundscapes are the pavilions of our era. So why exactly has the physical shape of sound taken on so much cultural weight? Is it all about the soundtrack, the space, the speakers, or simply the ethos and experience of being completely immersed within audio? What's most notable is who is engaging with sound and why.
The current state of audio fetishisation has moved on a stage from the listening bars of the last decade into something even more involved – a full-on, highly performative sonic immersion. The rocketing revival of physical media, from vinyl to cassettes and CDs, is coupled with a renewed interest in sound systems big and small, bespoke speaker designs and custom installations.
Listening rooms, once considered a niche within a niche, have gone mainstream, as brands, manufacturers and artists realise the power of focused listening as a tool for securing attention in a focus-deficit world. Musicians and sound designers, too, are seeing their work bleed out of traditional venues and into the realm of dedicated events activations.
The emotive qualities of sound and music have been amplified in the digital age. Younger generations appear more wedded to their headphones than any critics of the Walkman could ever have predicted back in the 1980s, perhaps to avoid a world full of misophonic cues. Then there's its inverse, the spine-tingling world of ASMR, which can add a spicy frisson that's simply impossible to achieve via any other medium.
In the meantime, sound design has also found fresh favour across the established design calendar. From Fritz Hansen's Sound Club collaboration with Technics and Bang & Olufsen's Residence of Beautiful Sound at this year's 3 Days of Design to Nine Days of Green in Copenhagen, an ‘international sound art festival' being trialled by the Sonic Museion: Museum for Sound Art, in the city's northern suburb of Sorgenfri Torv, sound has found itself a new audience. These partnerships often result in natural brand extensions – the Fritz Hansen/Technics alliance resulted in a new edition of the ‘SL-40CBT' turntable, while B&O got the opportunity to showcase its bespoke ‘Atelier' series in a (grand) domestic space.
Designer Angelo Nitsopoulos and his studio Bentgablenits worked with Swedish manufacturer Teenage Engineering for a 2025 exhibition, ‘Sounds Like Home', which tapped into music boxes and dolls' houses to evoke nostalgia. ‘People are increasingly craving moments of intentional focus,' says Nitsopoulos. ‘In a world where nearly every brand experience competes for attention, sound installations do the opposite. They invite people to slow down and engage more deeply. Audio is one of the few mediums that can completely shift how a space is experienced without demanding visual attention.'
Bentgablenits was also instrumental in the making of the ‘Choir', TE's anthropomorphic wooden doll chorus (a Wallpaper* Design Awards 2023 winner, no less). ‘Technology should be experienced, not demonstrated,' says Nitsopoulos. ‘For brands, dedicated listening spaces have become a way to create genuine emotional connection rather than simply another product launch. The strongest ones don't feel like marketing. They feel like culture. When someone gives you 20 minutes of uninterrupted attention, that's far more valuable than a few seconds scrolling past a campaign online.'
Then there are the occasions where the audio component feels like an attempt to ensnare the next new thing. Alcohol brands find a natural affinity with sound. At the turn of the decade, Krug enlisted the late Ryuichi Sakamoto to create a symphony, Suite for Krug in 2008, to celebrate an exceptional champagne vintage. This year, it was Dom Pérignon's turn, with Expressions of Harmony, a ‘multisensory experience' in bespoke spaces in New York and LA, timed to accompany the launch of three vintages.
Overseen by Andrew Freesmeier with audio by Jonathan Weiss of OMA and Fleetwood Sound, the spaces were animated through a specially recorded mix of Nepalese cymbals, Koji chimes and Tibetan singing bowls, conjuring up a soundscape with purported links to Dom Pérignon itself. According to Weiss, this mix of ‘harmony, resonance and duration' has parallels with the tasting of the champagne. A surprise performance by Mark Ronson added a bit of fizz.
Soundscapes and intentional listening bring a ceremonial aspect to these activations, demanding greater focus and involvement than, say, a party or performance. There's also a mindfulness element to consider, thanks to the contention that focus and intentionality are a welcome salve for short attention spans, skipped-through playlists and relentless soundbites.
Events like Pitchblack Playback (listen to classic albums, previews and DJ mixes in the dark, no phones allowed) or Polygon Portal (a darkened room with cutting-edge, 360-degree spatial audio) want to bring back the sense of occasion once commanded by the humble vinyl LP, when you put the needle on the record and listened straight through each side, no distractions.
In Las Vegas, you can visit the Vinyl Room at the Mandalay Bay resort and casino, which follows on from Live Nation's Vinyl Room at the Hollywood Palladium. It's a mix of 1970s kitsch, analogue audio, classic albums and a (new term alert) ‘wheatpaste archive' of show posters from artists who have trodden the Palladium stage in the past. Speakers from Fulcrum Acoustic and MasterSounds are paired with Technics' ‘SL-1200s' across the three lounge spaces. Technics has also partnered with Suntory Whisky Toki and London's Spiritland King's Cross, one of London’s original listening bars, to create a series of events running at venues around the UK until December. Toki-ONights is described as a ‘new ritual for UK nightlife, importing Japanese listening bar culture, the kissaten, with a modern twist'.
For sound designers and live musicians, there's more to all this than a pair of massive speakers, moody lighting and a smartphone ban. At Oxford's Schwarzman Centre, Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós worked with David Sheppard and John Best of spatial audio specialists Loss Gain, as well as Oxford University academics, to create Ára. For one week only, this elevated take on ‘deep listening' brought together audio from the band's live shows with D&B Audiotechnik's Soundscape sound system, lighting design by Matt Daw and even a scent (from singer Jónsi's perfume brand Fischersund), all coming together to create a communal ‘transformative state' with wellbeing potential.
Another audio project that puts concentration at its heart is Deeper Focus. This non-site-specific soundscape was created by Richie Hawtin, better known as Plastikman, and released via the Endel wellness app. The Berlin company specialises in ‘personalised adaptive soundscapes' that increase focus and reduce stress.
‘In a world where nearly every brand experience competes for attention, sound installations do the opposite. They invite people to slow down and engage more deeply'
Designer Angelo Nitsopoulos of studio Bentgablenits
In autumn 2026, London's Southbank Centre is holding the UK premiere of a ‘mixed-reality classical music experience', Playing With Fire: An Immersive Odyssey with Yuja Wang, the Chinese/American pianist. Bringing together live music with art and mixed reality via spatial audio technology and mixed-reality headsets, this might be the audio version of stepping into an immersive projection of a Hockney or Van Gogh, having a night out at ABBA Voyage or enjoying an IMAX presentation of a Christopher Nolan film. Seekers of authenticity beware; the programme notes clearly state that ‘Playing with Fire does not feature Yuja Wang in person. The experience is a virtual concert featuring a pre-recorded avatar of Yuja and her recital, presented in an immersive environment.'
This uncertain collision of the real and the virtual presents a liminal space ripe for exploration, even if experimentation is limited by commercial considerations. London-based Sonic Design Studios (SDS) is one of the multidisciplinary firms operating in this field. ‘We work at the point where sound meets architecture and interiors, rather than at the AV end,' says the studio's founder Tariq Ibrahim, explaining how sophisticated measuring systems will shape the deployment of audio in and outside the home. ‘Many in the field treat acoustics as compliance: decibels, thresholds, sign-off. There are industry standards that set physical limits, but neither measures the cognitive burden a room places on the person inside it. That's the gap we work in.'
SDS wants to explore the ways in which sound can alter moods, using a bespoke framework they call the Cognitive Load Index that tracks how spatial and material design impacts who is in such a space and for how long. ‘Acoustics is still typically specified building-wide, one treatment logic applied across a scheme. But because our model accounts for occupant and duration, it returns a different score room by room,' says Ibrahim. A recent SDS project that exemplifies their approach is Claude's at Chotto Matte in London's Soho. ‘It's a members' listening lounge where sound is designed as atmosphere rather than infrastructure, and designed alongside the interior rather than after it,' notes Ibrahim.
New York studio Silence Please operates in a similar space. A recent project with Adidas Originals led to an installation at the brand's SoHo flagship store, along with a limited run of track jackets with embroidery inspired by speaker design. The studio describes itself as ‘operating at the intersection of hi-fi audio, spatial design, and contemporary culture', with a speciality in building audio systems that are also ‘sculptural design objects'.
These, too, are a familiar trope. Visitors to Peter Doig's recent ‘House of Music’ exhibition, on show at London's Serpentine Galleries, were awed by the speaker system that accompanied Doig's paintings. Salvaged from derelict UK cinemas by the artist's co-collaborator, cinematic sound enthusiast Laurence Passera, the mighty units date from an era when power and scale were inseparable qualities. Built by Western Electric/Bell Labs in the pre-war era, these rescued audio monoliths have been repurposed for the modern age, alongside a soundtrack library of 300 vinyl records, to provide immersive analogue warmth for a new generation.
This blend of wattage-fetishism is feeding straight back into the higher end of hi-fi. Speakers are getting larger, more ornate and elaborate. Belgian vintage specialist Wauw keeps classic audio pieces alongside its furniture stock, from early B&O to unique pieces by French actor and hi-fi dabbler Alain Delon. And in recent years, we've seen forays into luxurious audio from the likes of Jony Ive (Linn's ‘Sondek LP12' turntable), Brian Eno's ‘Turntable II' (using Pro-Ject components) and B&O's five ‘Beolab 90' editions, with prices upwards of £400,000 for a pair. Many leading hi-fi companies already have specialist home installation services, but others are going further still. This summer saw the launch of Loewe Systems, a dedicated arm of the German audio brand that will focus on integrating sophisticated systems into high-end yachts, cars and residences.
The rapid arrival of the new audio environment has left the gallery behind, favouring pop-ups and festivals, brand activations and elaborate home audio set-ups over the avant-garde physicality of pioneering sound practitioners. The work of artists like Christian Marclay, Laurie Anderson, Janet Cardiff, John Cage, and even Brian Eno and David Byrne, achieved its transcendence without the need to sell something else. Earth-shattering audio is both tool and talisman, a means of self-expression for brands and big rollers alike.
Most importantly, it's not just classic albums and contemporary artists that are playlisted in these new physical spaces of listening, but also specially curated, bespoke soundscapes designed to be enmeshed in the physicality and design of the music systems and spaces themselves. For some listeners, intentional audio spaces are a way of finding a point of focus within a chaotic system. For others it's a chance to redirect wayward attention, a new tool at the busy intersection of commerce and culture.
This article originally appeared in Wallpaper* magazine, October 2026. Wallpaper* is available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today