The Mythic Modern: Architectural Expeditions into the Spirit of Place depicts an amazing fifteen years of adventurous design/build projects in extraordinary landscapes from Machu Picchu, Nepal, and the Amazon to Italy, Ireland, and Finland. The projects are built in a modern idiom yet with designs inspired by local cultures and ecologies, a series of legacy installations a la Christo, but with a conscience. These award-winning and highly published projects have been called out as a convergence of Andy Goldsworthy, Frank Gehry, and Joseph Campbell ? with a dash of Indiana Jones thrown in. A decade and a half ago, Travis Price, FAIA, created the Spirit of Place/Spirit of Design (SPSD) design/build, educational exploration program for architecture students at the Catholic University of America to provide students the opportunity to research, design, and construct a project in nine days in a remote landscape once a year, and the program continues to this day. The design philosophy of SPSD enunciates a crucial turning point in modernism, which, while replete with Green underpinnings, takes a critical look at the preservation of authenticity and character in a contemporary design language. The book tells tales of the adventures of building installations, which in turn tell their own tales about revived cultural legacies. A plethora of amazing National Geographic?quality photographic images are displayed: action stories by photographers such as Ken Wyner, Chris Rainier, and Eamon O'Boyle. The visual record includes a superb library of project images showing the design process, key indigenous peoples, construction action, human-interest stories, finished projects, and exotic landscapes. AUTHOR: Travis Price, FAIA, is a multiple award-winning architect, philosopher, and innovator in environmentally sound architecture. Wade Davis is a noted anthropologist, ethnobotanist, author, and photographer whose work has focused on indigenous cultures, including his 1985 best-seller, The Serpent and the Rainbow. Professor Stanley Hallet, FAIA, is the former Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning of The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., where he continues to teach. ILLUSTRATIONS: 250 photographs o50 illustrations *
