Finally, standardization, like convention, can be another manifestation of the strong order. But unlike convention it has been accepted in Modern architecture as an enriching product of our technology, yet dreaded for its potential domination and brutality. But is it not standardization that is without circumstantial accommodation and without a creative use of context that is to be feared more than
standardization itself? The ideas of order and circumstance, convention and context--of employing standardization in an unstandard way-apply to our continuing problem of standardization versus variety. Giedion has written of Aalto's unique "combination of standardization with irrationality
so that standardization is no longer master but servant." 34 I prefer to think of Aalto's art as contradictory
rather than irrational-an artful recognition of the circumstantial and the contextual and of the inevitable limits of the order of standardization.