you must understand that Modernism was a primarily ideological movement and should not be confused with its physical manifestation - i.e. grids, orthogonal structures, industrial aesthetics.

perhaps we should disengage modernism from the industrial revolution: surely, they mutually inform each other, but they are not the same thing. Modernism was chiefly about the masses. Primarily humanitarian perhaps? (correct me if i'm wrong). The reduction to numbers, the frankfurt kitchen et al, were a product of the ideology with the constraints of the time. The criticism of modernism as alienating or being reductive was not the fault of modernism itself but with the scale and resolution that it was allowed to execute its ideology.

Wired's "how to live by numbers" illuminates this- the increased resolution with which we are able to cast a lens upon, document and evaluate.

perhaps then the grid, even if it breaks down, is not a bad thing. how much more inefficient would it be if a building were non-cartesian? computing can now optimize the material and structure. Thus, not much more or less would be my guess. Why Stick To The Grid then?

I propose thus that now in this time it is possible to become modernists again. the same song with different instruments.