Modernism swept through the world with the varieties of weapons such as posters, paintings, architecture and literature. It was all about rejection and revolution. Everything and anything perhaps considered as art. Simplicity had become the main street for every new artists. There were many kind of simplicity arrived during that period. However it brought some disadvantages as well which is the missing line of history. Human loves connection to its past and abandoning it all together later proved to be a wrong move. Now we can see how contemporary architects are trying to make culturally infused architecture rather than plain simple modern buildings. If you are interested please look at the work of Frank Gehry (his UTS business school soon to be completed may be in 2014, is a representation of aboriginal buildings through his vision of course), Jean Nouvle one of his work is Islamic Institure du monde Arabe in France. And many other architects place their cultural priority at first than their desire or philosophy. This obviously has been learnt from the mistakes of modern movement. And the pioneer of this teaching is the postmodernist architects. To name some, Robert Venturi, Charles Moore and Aldo Rossi.
Post modernism had grown more than art and architecture, It became a lifestyle for those who fell in love with it. It came in as a heavy reaction to the modernist cold effort to revitalize the civilization. Postmodernism explore all the options that are available in the area of interest. Let it be art or architecture post modernist designers will pursue history and research as their base point. From their they will mix up the new found technology in their work. So it has both referential points and contemporary techniques.
What made them so different is not the mix but the philosophical stand point against modernism. Post modernist architects opposed that modernism does not care about humans rational side or psychological needs. This had created a hollow in the society. In order to lessen this problem designers need to find a new way of doing things. That new way is to create things that relates to something. It includes all the functional items and fundamental rules but it did things in a different way.
Contextual 