CASTOR PLACE
An ancient naval hub, Piraeus serves as the primary port for the greater Athens region, facilitating both commercial trade and ferry routes to the islands. Today, the industrial waterfront is entering a phase of cultural recalibration. Within a city block of 19th-century port warehouses, new artistic gravity is emerging: two of Greece’s leading contemporary art galleries have embedded themselves into the historic fabric, reframing the area with international significance.
Re-calibrated tension, MPNYC was commissioned to transform a former 19th-century storage warehouse into a multi-use venue capable of hosting lectures, exhibitions, workshops, concerts, dance and theatre performances. Castor Place takes its name from Kastoros Street, itself derived from Castor, one of the Dioscuri twins of Ancient Greek mythology. This lineage introduces an underlying narrative of duality and parallel states that underpins the project. Transformation here is not erasure, but a conscious doubling, where old and new exist in calibrated tension.
When Andreas Kostopoulos received the building, it bore the marks of haphazard interventions. The original 1850s masonry shell, defined by thick load-bearing walls worn by time, had been compromised by a 1990s conversion into a dark, inward-facing nightclub, which imposed a two-story metal extension onto the structure.
ADAPTIVE REUSE
The Fun Palace Legacy, The challenge was to reconcile these disparate layers through a method grounded in clarity, adaptability, and light. His reading of the venue’s potential was informed by a familiar theoretical precedent: Cedric Price’s Fun Palace, often described as a “Swiss army knife for the arts”, where indeterminacy and user-driven transformation superseded fixed form. This ethos materialized later in projects such as The Shed, which Andreas engaged with during his time with Liz Diller, where architecture operates as an enabling framework rather than a static object.
Castor Place was similarly conceived as a blank canvas. Modular staging, flexible lighting, and open floor planning allow it to shape-shift seamlessly for diverse functions. By stripping back unnecessary layers and reopening plugged-in windows and doors, the building now functions as an open, welcoming space capable of continuous reconfiguration.
Surgical Archeology, Andreas’s design strategy operates in an in-between condition: rather than erase its history, he applied a method of surgical archaeology to articulate its disparate layers. The 1990s addition was reinterpreted as a metallic monolithic volume hovering above the original masonry. A slender clerestory window visually separates the two eras, creating the impression of levitation above the original cornice and culminating in a dramatic nine-meter-tall vertical window. This cathedral-like glass opening floods the interior with natural light while revealing the towering heights within that is unique on this block.
Liquid metal, The existing, deteriorated metal façade was refurbished to improve acoustic and water insulation, then finished with a liquid metal coating embedded with aluminum microfibers. This surface performs as a responsive skin: protecting from sun exposure whilst producing a shifting reflectivity that atmospherically mirrors the sky above Piraeus.
Below, the porous stone base was restored following the removal of the previous protective plaster. Vintage brick was introduced to reconstruct the canopy and left intentionally un-mortared to preserve the visible discontinuity between past and present. The effect is a calibrated contrast between materials, allowing the building’s temporal layers to remain fully discernible.
INSIDE
Architectural Whitewashing, Inside, the approach shifts toward unification. To bring coherence to the expansive space, a thin coat of simple stucco was applied over the surfaces – a traditional, coarser filler now largely absent from modern mortars. Liberated from the fatigue of fake perfection, the intervention embraces the honesty of authentic materials. This architectural "whitewashing" turns the various damaged surfaces, structural bracing, metal panels and brick infill into a continuous tonal field, creating an abstracted, almost model-like quality. Paradoxically, this unifying layer accentuates the disparate textures underneath, the many "surgeries" Castor Place has undergone through the decades now emerge in sharper relief.
The interior volume was further restructured with balconies that provide multiple elevations, overhead trusses and a suspended gantry crane lighting system along the roof, enabling flexible programming and multiple modes of use. The space transforms continuously, supporting each event without imposing a fixed identity.
Existing trusses, once external structural elements, were conserved and reframed as readymade decorative features, intentionally interrupting the window views as a tangible reminder of the building’s accumulated past.
A COLLABORATIVE MANIFESTATION
Βαθυμετρία / Casting Water , The building's inaugural exhibition, Βαθυμετρία / Casting Water, was conceived not merely as an event but as a lens for presenting the space itself. Working closely with artist Stefania Strouza and curator and architect Giulio Margheri, the project became an exploration of how art, curation, and architecture can coalesce.
Central to this collaboration is a pair of monumental cast-aluminum doors, intended as a permanent installation that will remain in-situ. The doors embody the synergy between Manhattan Projects, Stefania Strouza, and the fabrication team Qoop. In dialogue with the building's layered history, they occupy a similarly liminal state, feeling unmistakably contemporary while resonating with the façade's existing textures and imperfections.
Strouza's practice is defined by a sustained engagement with aluminum, valued for its malleability, reflectivity, and transformative potential. For the doors, she evoked the softness ofcast aluminum in contrast against the solidity of the surrounding stone walls. Drawing inspiration from Piraeus’ maritime context, she developed an abstract pattern whose textures reference bathymetry, the science of measuring water depth for mapping ocean floors. The reliefs, organized through a grid corresponding to the building's architectural elements, allude to sonar images, liquid topographies and submerged landscapes. For Strouza, a parallel exists between the casting process, creating a negative form in sand and pouring molten metal into the cavity, and bathymetric practices that document fluid, underwater systems.
The exhibition, shaped by Margheri’s curatorial hand, spans a decade of the artist's experimentation with materiality. Engaging with the environmental and cultural history of different sites in Greece, Strouza’s work highlights the intertwined relationships between human infrastructures and the natural environment. Aluminum sculptures are accompanied by works in plaster, copper-plated and oxidized roots, ceramics, and marble, highlighting the interplay between natural and industrial processes at the core of her work.
The capacity of Castor Place is now activated by the collaborative ethos that shapes its use.
MPNYC
Manhattan Projects New York City, Founded in 2019, Manhattan Projects (MPNYC) is a design studio dedicated to enduring architecture in an era of constant change. Rather than advancing an aesthetic current, MPNYC blurs the boundaries between different techniques, styles, and periods. The result is an intentionally ambiguous body of work that is both artisanal and engineered, classical and contemporary, local and global, minimal and ornamental. The firm has offices in New York City, London and Athens and is led by Andreas Kostopoulos with projects around the world, including active cultural, fashion, and hospitality projects in Europe, North America, and Asia.
Andreas Kostopoulos is the lead design partner. Prior to founding MPNYC, Andreas was an Associate Director at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, an interdisciplinary design studio renowned for its cultural, civic, and academic projects. Born and raised in Athens, Greece, Andreas studied Structural Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens before obtaining a Master’s in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and the Architectural Association in London.
Castor Place is housed in a stone building dating back to 1885, which originally served as storage facilities supporting the port of Piraeus. In 2023, the owners, with the help of architect Andreas Kostopoulos, transformed the building into its current condition. Today , it hosts private and corporate events, exhibitions, talks, photoshoots, and more.
www.castorplace.gr, [email protected]
CREDITS
Photo Credit: Yorgos Kaplanidis
Exhibition co-curated by: MPNYC and Architect Giulio Margheri
Cast Aluminum Doors: Stefania Strouza
Fabrication: Christos Spetseris, Qoop Metalworks. Qoop operates in the common area of metalworking and architecture. www.qoop.gr, [email protected], [email protected]
