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Conversely, sign systems may be decoded, permitting the comprehension, manipulation or modification of human behaviour by such understanding. The method of semiology is first to separate an act (or an object) called the 'signifier' from its meaning, called the 'signified'. The sign may therefore be defined as the union of a form with an idea. The major characteristic of the sign is that it is arbitrary. Words, for example, are simply collective social conventions that can and do change radically over time and which vary from one linguistic group to another.

For example, a slave owns neither his or her own labour nor does he or she own any means of production. Marxian theory therefore maintains that history progresses on the basis of particular modes of production, which are defined by these specific social relations. Land and property ownership, institutional forms and their symbolic representation all emerge from this process, and are inherently interlinked in the social production of urban form, towns, cities, conurbations, as well as the location and expression of places, spaces, monuments and buildings.

Rationalism promotes a functionalist philosophy whereby new urban forms can be invented to suit new social agendas, one where the legacy of history has little bearing. Contextual ism argues that no new urban forms can be created, since all of these are already in existence. Instead, we should study historically defined typologies and use these to plan cities, rather than adopting the sterile zoning practices of state-sponsored regulation. Rationalist architecture and urbanism reached its zenith in its coincidence with functionalist social science and the eugenic strategies of fascism, particularly with Hitler and his architect Albert Speer (see figures 12 and 13) and with Mussolini (Marcello Piacentini, Giuseppe Terragni).