Midwest Book Review, January 2006
Book Description
In this unique and visually stimulating volume, fifty buildings from around the world are explored through the people who created them. Organized according to the idea that architecture is a result of basic human desires to live, work, pray, play, and stay—50 Great Adventures in Architecture traces architecture back to the people who made it happen. Offering a global spectrum of illuminating architectural destinations, the book journeys from Lanzarote, Spain, home of Cesar Manrique’s Jameos del Agua grotto, a James Bond style fantasy for its creator to India, the site of Nek Chand’s Rock Garden of Chandigarh, a realization of the architect’s childhood dream; and from Arizona where Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti, a vision for a utopian community, shimmers in the Southwestern desert to China’s Forbidden City, conceived by the Ming emperor Yongle to assert his authority over a vast empire. Radiantly designed and filled with information for appreciators of architecture as well as international travel, this collection of extraordinary spaces testifies to the staying power of true inspiration and the force of the individual imagination.
