This sumptuous book surveys the wide range of styles — from ethereal and whimsical to epic and monumental, but always rational and surprisingly balanced — that have characterized modern architecture. Written by a group of renowned experts, the book features many high-quality images that show the multifaceted spirit of modern architecture and illustrate the complex international forces that helped create it. Styles range from technological expressiveness to the emerging new modernity, from gargantuan structures and hi-tech to postmodernism, minimalism, and deconstructionism. Great museums and hyperfunctional airports, huge shopping malls and futuristic libraries, sports centers and immense university complexes — along with their highly imaginative designers — are the stars of this exciting look at the shapes, materials, colors, ideas, and symbols that comprise architecture's innovative interpretation of our distinctive world.