Viktor Abakoumkin

This thesis explores architecture as a series of liminal or interstitial spaces, proposing that a building’s essence can exist beyond its objectified form. I argue that its impact is most profound not when perceived as a whole, but through the interstitial spaces it generates. This claim challenges the conventional dichotomy between subject and object, where architecture is commonly understood as a distinct, graspable entity. Instead, my approach considers how architecture can resist objecthood, existing only in relation to movement and perception. I interpret the experience of the building as an Anti-Object. An Anti-Object emerges when one does not fully confront its objectivity. It resists singularity not by dissolving into its surroundings, but by denying the possibility of being fully grasped.

The term Anti-Object might initially appear paradoxical, as the prefix anti- originates from the Ancient Greek word meaning “against” or “opposite.” However, my argument does not advocate for the rejection of objects per se. Unlike Kengo Kuma, who, in his book Anti-Object: The Dissolution and Disintegration of Architecture, states that his aim is to "erase" architecture, my focus lies in the creation of an alternative way of experiencing a building - one that encourages inhabiting the in-between: a choreography of interstitial space.

This concept is explored through the design of a concert hall - an architectural program traditionally conceived as a self-contained object - within the Dionysos Marble Quarry in Penteli, Greece. The quarry, a site of perpetual transformation, is defined as much by absence as by presence, shaped by centuries of extraction. As the source of the marble that built the foundations of Athenian democracy and the architecture of the Golden Age of Pericles, it embodies a spatial history of both subtraction and accumulation. This condition makes it an ideal site for examining the interplay between sectional object and interstitial space. Rather than reinforcing the concert hall as a singular architectural entity, the quarry itself is thought of as a container, holding within it the threshold where solid and void, presence and absence, sequence and viewpoint continuously redefine the visitor’s experience.