Mirto Pagomenaki
Layers of Identities at the Threshold to Fortress Europe
What does it mean for a building to hold multiple and shifting identities through its abandonment? To become, at once, a shelter and a border, a space of waiting, both temporary and permanent?
Being an architect from Crete, with a practice that moves between the restoration of historical buildings and a theoretical interest of what shelter means in an era marked by displacement and constant movement, I seek to explore how spaces in my place of origin absorbed the impact of migration. Especially when Crete has become one of the main landing points for refugees since summer 2025.1
This research is situated between architecture, adaptive reuse and border policies. It explores how an abandoned infrastructure in Crete – the exhibition center of Agia in Chania, a place once designed for gathering and display – now becomes a space of waiting where geopolitical boundaries intersect.
Through archival and on-site research, mapping, photography, collages, and local testimonies, I will trace the spatial and emotional layers of the building’s transformations, from its original design to its temporary inhabitation as a refugee camp.
The outcome of this research seeks to reveal, through an installation accompanied by an archrival diary, possibly on the site itself, how abandoned buildings, though seemingly empty, carry multiple layers of identities through the refuge experience and continue to shape collective experiences of crisis and belonging.
The Layer of refuge at the Agia Center – sketch by Mirto Pagomenaki
- https://www.viory.video/en/videos/a3407_14072025/crete-migrant-crisis-agia-facility-overwhelmed-by-surge-in-refugees-asylum-seekers