The curious sensation that emerges when you come across images of deserted locations, leaving you without a clear answer. This is the essence of a liminal space. It’s something we’ve likely all experienced, whether in a fleeting moment of reality or captured in the frames of art and film. Simple as they appear – an empty room, an abandoned lot – these locations can trigger a surprising mix of emotions, becoming a powerful and often unspoken resource for artistic expression.
What is it like to look at a specific place that was part of our childhood, such as McDonald’s from the 90s and early 2000s, or an empty mall? Feelings of nostalgia might be the first to surface, a reminder of how much time has passed. It is quite hard to reduce it to one particular definition, but most people describe liminal spaces as capable of evoking: uncertainty, confusion, anxiety, nostalgia, and sometimes a sense of self-discovery.
From an architectural perspective, a liminal space could be defined as a transitional area that connects different spaces or states of being, often characterized by ambiguity, uncertainty, and a shared sense of direction or movement. In general, they tend to be corridors, libraries, backrooms, elevators, or simply empty rooms. These in-between spaces can feel uncertain and lack clear markers. Why do they look familiar, even when we haven’t been there? Probably because we frequently encounter these spaces in our daily lives, across different building types and cultural contexts. This constant exposure to similar spatial layouts and design elements creates an inherent sense of familiarity.
