Four Florida Moderns, by Saxon Henry. (Norton. 311 pages. $50.)

If you think that Florida architecture is a mishmash of Mediterranean, Art Deco and Bungalow-style architecture with a splash of Caribbean color, then Four Florida Moderns by Saxon Henry will show you in colorful detail just how wrong you are.

Those styles may be popular here, but that does not equate to Florida architecture. A building must engage with its environment, says Robert McCarter, professor of architecture at Washington University, one of several contributors to the book. In Florida, that means a design that minimizes energy use, materials and damage to the environment while ``maximizing the richness of the experiences of the inhabitants, [and] the accommodation of a lifestyle appropriate to the tropics.''

Among other elements, he says, that means using design to minimize our dependence on air conditioning.

The ``four Florida moderns'' refer to four contemporary architects -- two in Miami, one in Tampa and one in Sarasota -- who have embraced a regional Florida modernism. They are respectively, René González, Chad Oppenheim, Alberto Alfonso and Guy W. Peterson.

Each of the four gets a chapter with a short biography, professional analysis of his work, a lengthy Q&A by Henry (an occasional contributor to The Miami Herald), and photographs, sketches and renderings of half a dozen or so of his projects. It's quite interesting to see how each of the four incorporates light, water and a diversity of building materials to create Florida modernism.

-- MARJIE LAMBERT

mlambert@MiamiHerald.com