Modernism is not the only alternative to Stern - cutting edge is off the map at this time - unclassified and in the making.
Is Calatrava a Modernist, or even neo-Modernist? What about that changing label that is now generically called Organic architecture, applied to such people as Jeanne Gang? CoopHimmelBlau is more like Gehry and Gehry is what? Zaha Hadid is in the mix but how would her buildings be labeled? And what about the cutting-edge of an eccentric, such as Alsop?
That Toronto reduction in this forum to Clewes vs Stern is not a broad enough palette even for the well known. And it further misses the mark by putting all of the argument into what is perceived to be a restatement of the past in both camps. Post Modernist and Modern Traditioinalist architecture tried to embrace the past, unsuccessfully in my view, as a way of rejecting the rules of the game of what went before. The fact that what is being labeled Modernism, has its date of origin somewhere around World War I, does not mean that those who have extended it into the present are doing the same thing as the Revivalists, the Post Modernists or even Modern Traditionalists. This is an externalised argument that ignores content - and ends up making essentially major differences look like minor detail.
I am reminded of Le Corbusier, whose book Vers Une Architecture is often translated as Towards a New Architecture. Where is that word 'New' used in the original title? Le Corbusier was attempting to create Architecture that would speak to an epoch, not to momentary change in perspective. He wanted to incorporate change by exploring the transformation of mass through the creative use of geometric form, but without the decorative appliques from the past to mis-direct the effort away from its purist expression. Moreover, Corbu did not desire to create buildings that could not be reinterpreted by another architect in a later time. Now that was the revolutionary idea that emerged above all the rest of it, including the rules that are no longer necessary to best accomplish this idea.
If we look at it this way, maybe without Modernism we wouldn't have the cutting edge we have today. Doesn't matter that much of it doesn't even look like Modernism anymore. But try to build a vibrant architecture based on looking back and it won't be long before you find yourself at a dead end. I prefer something that represents a more adaptive architecture that fits our age, or an age that can be anticipated - not false nostalgia or sentimental recollections of what never was. It matters to me that this be good, solid architecture, but it matters not that it is either a form of Modernism, or something more correctly re-assigned to the cutting edge.
