Architecture and meaning

Architecture and meaning 

Is it so that architecture can express ideologies and cultural attitudes? They say that Le Corbusier's villa's encapsulated the attitudes of their early 20th century-urbanites that occupied them: their mechanised environment, their detachment, their god-like overview. They also say that the Renaissance villa was a connection between its agricultural setting and the urban culture of its occupants (retaining some form of ecological balance or "consensus" according to Back to the garden  - b.t.w. in both cases it's about villas: could it be that the type holds some special appeal?).

I find such claims hard to accept for two kinds of reasons. The first is that they are not inclusive. For example, despite their charm, modernist villas didn't become a huge success, even if one adds blocks of flats with similar morphology to the tally. Suburban semi-detached and row housing with more traditional forms and a closer contact to the ground have an enduring popularity that disproves many of the modernist arguments.

The second reason is that ascribing a particular meaning to an architectural form seems like a scholarly invention: isn't it possible to attach various meanings to them, e.g. link them to the aspirations of a social class? In the end, one could have any kind of connotations, as the frequent a-historical revivals suggest. Drawing from affordance theory, one might even claim that user activities can change the meaning of any environment.