No Man’s Land – a project by the Skopje-based architectural design studio Stone Design – will represent Macedonia next year at the 15^th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice.

The Venice Biennale will take place on 28 May – 27 November 2016 and is titled “Reporting from the Front”.

A committee of experts unanimously selected the project No Man’s Land due to being ‘a direct response to the slogan “Reporting from the Front” and to current issues facing the architecture and the society.’

Announcing the decision at a news conference on Wednesday, Culture Minister Elizabeta Kanceska-Milevska said No Man’s Land was ‘a thorough and conceptual presentation having a highly aesthetic value.’

“The project tackles the essential problem in this day and age, taking into consideration these times of swift changes, political processes and economic crises. Using an architectural work of art, the authors of this project transfer the public in a subjective reality of soul-searching amid the new likely geographical changes,” said Kanceska-Milevska.

Stone Design has offered two variations of the project depending on the venue where the project will be displayed in Venice.

The first option includes a curved tunnel, with the tunnel representing the desire to pass through and find a way out, and the curved alignment as a symbol of uncertainty and great expectations. The second concept is a rectangular foundation facing the public and associating a protected halo, a glass garden of some sorts.