Being of the Cosmos: Insights of Great Minds (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781463591595)

Mid-entury modern architectural pioneer John M Johansen FAIA has been creating award-winning, controversial architecture for over 70 years. Last of the famed "Harvard Five" and widely recognized as one of America's most innovative modern architects, Johansen has continually drawn upon his inquisitive mind, passionate drive and integrative sense of design, always utilizing cutting edge materials and technologies, to produce extraordinary architecture. Now in his 95th year, Johansen is creating designs for the future when a "new species of architecture" - nanoarchitecture - will emerge. Throughout his career Johansen has concerned himself with the meaning of things in the broadest imaginable context. It has not been enough for him to do the work of an architect in an extraordinary way; rather, he has wanted to know how it fits into a wider scheme of the world. With his rational, secular stance, the sciences-indeed, the critical, even skeptical spirit of science-has been a guiding source for his thinking, but not the only one. He has followed an inner, intuitive sense of totality that brings many separate strands and fragments together into a coherent yet open world-view. Johansen's latest book, Being of the Cosmos: Insights of Great Minds, reflects a broad extension of his maturity in his later years, with a search for the Ultimate Reality through three avenues of inquiry--science, mysticism, and the arts.