A classic Soviet-era sanatorium complex on the riverbank in Mykolaiv, best known online for its eerily empty indoor pool with greenish water, cascading features and stark tiled surfaces, yet the entire location carries a deep, nostalgic liminality that extends far beyond the pool itself.
An underground 1950s pedestrian arcade of salmon-pink tiles, black granite columns and art-deco shopfronts that runs beneath Flinders Street, creating one of Melbourne’s most distinctive liminal and time-warp spaces.
A cluster of giant bright-red strawberry buildings with yellow seeds and green leafy tops sits on a grassy mound under a clear blue sky, creating one of the most playfully surreal and kidcore liminal scenes in West Java.
One of the most frequently cited real-world examples of Frutiger Aero. The mid-2000s interior featured bubble motifs, curved glass, soft aquatic blue gradients and a light, airy feel that perfectly captured the era’s optimistic tech-meets-nature aesthetic.
Enormous climate-controlled glass biomes filled with mist, elevated walkways and carefully lit vegetation. The combination of curved glass, soft lighting and empty paths creates a strong sense of being inside a controlled, possibly rendered environment that feels straight out of an early-2000s vision of the future.
The famous rolling green hill and blue sky that served as the default wallpaper for Windows XP. Photographed in 1996, it became one of the most viewed images in history and remains a perfect example of the optimistic, clean, nature-meets-technology feeling that later evolved into Frutiger Aero.
A striking modern structure of glass and futuristic forms set on the waterfront. When less crowded, the light-filled spaces feel suspended and rendered, like an optimistic architectural vision reminiscent of the Frutiger Aero aesthetic.
A rooftop aquarium high above the streets of Ikebukuro, where soft blue lighting, transparent walkways and fish tanks sit against a backdrop of the city skyline.
Stranded on the California–Nevada border, this large casino resort often runs at strikingly low occupancy. Empty parking lots stretch into the desert, and the scale of the public spaces compared with the number of guests creates an unsettling, yet nostalgic sense of a place caught between its intended glamour and quiet decline; like a “forgotten mini-Vegas”, constantly in limbo.
Rebuilt every winter from ice and snow harvested from the Torne River, the ICEHOTEL exists only for a few months before melting back into the landscape. Its silent, fluorescent lit corridors and artist-carved suites feel temporary and fleeting, and like waking up inside of a winter wonderland only ever spoken about in fairytales.
