Abstract: The historical construction and theoretical discourse on modern architecture almost ran through the entire 20th century, but the traditional discourse on modern architectural history is mostly based on grand narrative versions such as rational enlightenment, industrial revolution, historical development, logical deduction, and stylistic evolution. The American modern architectural historian and theorist, Kenneth Frampton, published his book Modern Architecture: A Critical History in the late 20th century, which has been revised and published five times ever since. Through a new critical perspective, it restructures the history of modern architecture and presents us with a more individualized, instantiated, fragmented, localized, and localized historical appearance of modern architecture that is closer to historical reality. In this critical historical narrative text, Frampton also interweaves his unique architectural theory based on the “spirit of place” with historical narration and case analysis, expanding to a certain extent in modern theory. This paper briefly reviews the Chinese translations of the third and fifth editions of the book with preliminary reflections.