Making It Modern: The History of Modernism in Architecture of Design - Hardcoverby Aaron Betsky (Author) At its root, modernism is that fundamental. It is a question of having something to represent that is of the moment. In the most radical interpretation, modernism always comes too late. The modern is that which is always new, which is to say, always changing and already old by the time it has appeared. Modernism is always a retrospective act, one of documenting or trying to catch what has already appeared an attempt to fix