"Modernism', as a label, has currency in the arts, architecture, planning, landscape, politics, theology, cultural history and elsewhere. Politics can serve as a starting point:
My friends, the past has been a time of woe. Let us go forward to a bright future, to a new age of Prosperity, Health and Happiness, founded on the principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.Even now, who can resist the reformer's utopian cry? Yet we hear much talk of postmodernism. When, in its turn, the age of postmodernism draws to a close, as it must, will the next ages be known as post-postmodernism and post-post-postmodernism? Surely not. Time-based names have a limited shelf-life. Better labels will be found, especially for such a practical art as environmental planning and design. For the present, "modernism' remains the best name for the trends that produced the culture of our times.
