what was modernism?

What was modernism? was the name of an English class I took in college. I was intrigued by the claim that modernity, which I considered to be the here and now, was actually something that was now in the past.

In the context of architecture, the word "modernism" carries less weight than it used to, and I am partly grateful for that development.
I am concerned, though, that we have lost touch with the spirit of the revolution that took place in the New England region shortly after the appointment of Walter Gropius to his position at Harvard. The consequences of his tenure at that school were profound, but I contend that modern architecture set itself in opposition to historicism not by its visual effect, but by its methodology. Gropius and his ilk were more interested in questions than answers. The legacy of the 19th century, expressed so completely at the 1893 Columbian Exposition, was one of absolute certainty and unequivocal faith in a stylistic system. If an architect was retained to design a church he could approach it from a Gothic perspective and be confident that the client would be satisfied and the parishioners filled with the requisite degree of awe. The modernist approached the design of the church with a series of questions, such as, "what is spirituality? what is its form? how can we reconcile the machine-age with four thousand years of worship? where will we park the cars?"

The Gropius House, pictured above, asked, and sought to answer, a different set of questions that pertained to the traditions of New England dwellings. Its success or failure as a vernacular architecture are less important than the spirit of inquiry that it fostered. Now, that spirit of inquiry can be directed at those icons of modernism that find themselves in the same historical position that they were once opposed to.