A man pushes her daughter on a cart as they shop at a market in Seoul, South Korea, July 26, 2016. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

A worker works at a plant of Hyundai Motor in Asan, South Korea, January 27, 2016. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

Two elderly men smoking pipes of opium on a terrace in Korea. (Photo by Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Getty Images). August 1950

A woman sits in a train at a subway station in Pyongyang, North Korea on September 11, 2018. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

Collided passenger train cars are seen in Taebaek, South Korea, Tuesday, July 22, 2014. Two passenger trains collided head-on in eastern South Korea on Tuesday afternoon, killing one passenger and injuring dozens, fire officials said. (Photo by AFP Photo/Yonhap)

A woman guards stand at the gate of a cosmetic factory during a government organised visit for foreign reporters ahead of 70th anniversary of North Korea's foundation in Pyongyang, North Korea on September 8, 2018. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

A South Korea fan smiles ahead of the Qatar 2022 World Cup Group H football match between Uruguay and South Korea at the Education City Stadium in Al-Rayyan, west of Doha on November 24, 2022. (Photo by Jewel Samad/AFP Photo)

At this year’s Venice Bienniale in Italy, the Korean pavilion has a curious exhibit called “Commissions for Utopia”. It includes renderings from North Korea’s top architects and artists (all anonymous), many of whom studied at the Paekho Institute of Architecture, North Korea’s state-run architectural college, and none of whom have ever left the country. They were asked to create a vision of North Korea’s future sustainable architecture for its expanding tourism industry. Their final products are a glimpse into what it would be like to envision the future after being entirely cut off from the present for almost 70 years. (Photo by Nick Bonner/Kyle Vanhemert/Venice Architecture Biennale)