Book excerpt: "The Geographic Region Around the North Pole is a Raw and Exotic Area of Untouched Nature and Inescapable Beauty. Building in this extremely cold climate requires an advanced degree of ingenuity and resolve. Ecological conditions, including high winds, snowdrifts, and permafrost, combined with periods of little sunlight present seemingly impossible logistical hurdles for architects. Vernacular buildings have emerged, but like most indigenous structures they do little more than simply enclose and protect. Recent years have witnessed an explosion of exceptional new architecture and a new definition of a Northern building - one that is both extraordinarily responsive to place and aesthetically provocative." "In Modern North: Architecture on the Frozen Edge, author Julie Decker presents thirty-four of the most compelling and far-ranging possibilities of contemporary architecture in the North. These buildings - located in northern Canada, Scandinavia, and Alaska - are united in the way they embrace extreme conditions and provide visual stimulation in places that sometimes offer little more than a whitescape. The book contains innovative structures by both established and up-and-coming architects, including David Chipperfield Architects, Studio Granda, and Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, as well as essays by Brian Carter, Juhani Pallasmaa, Edwin Crittenden, and Lisa Rochon that place the projects in the context of a new architectural response to the North."--BOOK JACKET.