New Canaan's Modern House Survey

Can someone please define for me the term "Modern House"?

The New Canaan Modern House Survey went public over the weekend due to some prodding by The New York Times. Their, the survey's, site is http://www.preservationnation.org/travel-and-sites/sites/northeast-region/new-canaan-ct/ and the survey was a group effort by the National Trust, The Glass House Museum, The Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, The New Canaan Historical Society and BCA (Building Conservation of America). Don't get me wrong, the survey is amazing and what a resource! I think that there are other towns that should do the same thing, Lincoln Massacussetts for instance.

Here is my issue, and you know I usually have one. Where is the line between Modern and Contemporary? When I went through the survey, did I mention how amazing it is, I was clicking thumbnails like nobody's business. On many pages however I saw houses that I would not consider "Modern". Were they there because, as in the case of  John Black Lee, he designed houses that were earth shatteringly modern and so others that don't appear as modern are to be preserved as other examples of a master's work? Look at Noyes. Noyes 2 unarguably modern. Weeks...I am not so sure. Although I helped move the Weeks out of that house in the 1970's and in to a condo in the center of town and the house seemed pretty modern on the inside.

Here is my, and only my, opinion.

If I were to close my eyes and think  "modern house" I would see a house like Noyes 2, Campbell/Goldberg, Lee 1 or 2 and houses of the ilk.  Houses like the Ackerman House, Talbert, Lindstrom and McDonnell houses? Cool Contemporary houses. For me Moderns of the time were about standing aside from what existed before, sort of a "that was then this is now" kind of thing. Contemporaries seem to be less groundbreaking without being any less cool as far as houses go. They are about getting away with something, almost flying under the radar. Moderns are the kids who stand on the table, a cup of institutional Tapioca Pudding clutched in one hand like a grenade yelling "into the breach boys" as the food fight begins in the cafeteria (a practice that no one attached to this website condones in any manner). The Contemporary is the kid who sneaks by your house after midnight and moons you. If a Contemporary gets caught, it's sightly less than colonial look is written off as "childish exuberance". If a Modern is "caught" it is raised to the ground and replaced by something more conventional, like a replica of Versailles.

I guess my point is that however awesome an undertaking the Modern House Survey is/was/continues to be we, who love modern need to be carefull not to delute what is modern, that is after someone clears it up for me.