MAYA LIN
Maya Ying Lin (born 1959) was an American architect whose two
most important works in the 1980s were the Vietnam Veterans'
Memorial in Washington, D.C., and the Civil Rights Memorial in
Montgomery, Alabama.
Maya Ying Lin was born in 1959 in Athens, Ohio, a
manufacturing and agricultural town 75 miles southeast of
Columbus. Athens is also the home of Ohio University, where
both Lin's mother, a poet, and her late father, a ceramicist,
taught. The couple fled China just before the Communist
Revolution of 1949, leaving behind a prominent family which
had included a well-known lawyer and, perhaps significantly,
an architect. Lin's family in America includes her mother and
an older brother, Tan, who, like his mother, is a poet.
During her childhood Maya Lin found it easy to keep herself
entertained, whether by reading or by building miniature
towns. From an early age she excelled in mathematics, which
led her toward a career in architecture. While in high school
Lin took college level courses and worked at McDonalds. She
considered herself a typical mid-westerner in that she grew up
with little sense of ethnic identity, but admits to having
been somewhat "nerdy," since she didn't date or wear make-up
and found it enjoyable to be constantly thinking and solving
problems.
After graduating from high school, Lin enrolled at Yale to
study architecture. Her best-known work, the design for the
Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington, D.C., grew out of a
class project during her senior year at Yale. In 1981 her
entry was chosen out of a field of 1,421 unlabelled
submissions in a design competition which was open to all
Americans, not just professional architects. Lin was just 21
years old at the time and admits she worried that her
professional life had peaked before it had properly started.
Lin's design, in keeping with the competition criteria of
sensitivity to the nearby Lincoln Memorial and Washington
Monument, the inclusion of the names of all the dead and
missing of the war, and the avoidance of political statements
about the war, was simple. She proposed two 200-foot-long
polished black granite walls, which plunged ten feet below
grade to meet at an obtuse angle of 130 degrees. The two arms
were to point to the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument
and to be inscribed with the names of the approximately 58,000
men and women killed or missing in Vietnam. These names were
to be listed chronologically, according to the dates killed or
reported missing, instead of alphabetically, so they would
read, in Lin's words, "like an epic Greek poem." The memorial
was dedicated in November of 1982.
The story of the politics surrounding the choice of Lin's
design reads like an epic in itself. For the jury, the choice
of her proposal was unanimous. Jury chairman Grady Clay
described it as "an eloquent place where the simple setting of
earth, sky, and remembered names contains messages" for
everyone who will visit. The proposal was generally accepted
by veterans, but early on a small but vocal minority of
veterans and others appeared who attacked the design as "a
tribute to Jane Fonda," a "wailing wall for draft dodgers,"
and "a black gash of shame." Lin's galvanizing design was
perhaps best described by one veteran who likened it to a
Rorschach test for what each American thinks of the Vietnam
War. Such a description suggests that Lin was successful in
her intentions to create "a very psychological memorial ...
that brings out in people the realization of loss and a
cathartic healing process."
Maya Lin cited Edwin Lutyens's Memorial to the Missing of the
Somme Offensive at Thiepval, France, of 1927-1932, as an
influence on her concept of the Vietnam Memorial. This huge,
abstract geometric form consists of a central arch flanked by
two barrel-vaulted tunnels on which over 70,000 names are
inscribed. In addition to Lutyens, Lin has expressed interest
in the works of Minimalist artists Dan Flavin, Robert Irwin,
and James Turrell, who all experimented with light as an art
medium and were pioneers in the anti-object, anti-gallery
movement of the 1960s. Turrell's definition of art as a "part
of the realm of experience," where each viewer bears
responsibility for finding meaning in a work and where each
viewer's reaction becomes part of the work itself, could
equally be applied to Lin's memorial, with its lack of
traditional forms and highly polished black granite surface,
which reflects each visitor's unique response to the memorial.
After the Vietnam Memorial project, Lin returned to Yale for a
Master's degree. Her later projects included designs for a
Philadelphia stage set; a corporate logo; an outdoor gathering
place at Juniata College in Huntington, Pennsylvania; a park
near the Charlotte, North Carolina, coliseum; and a ceiling
for the Long Island Railroad section of Pennsylvania Station.
In addition, her lead and glass sculptures have been exhibited
at New York's Sidney Janis Gallery.
Maya Lin's second nationally recognized project was the design
of the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama,
commissioned by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Lin's
conception of the memorial grew out of her admiration of a
line in Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, which
proclaims that the struggle for civil rights will not be
complete "until justice rolls down like water and
righteousness like a mighty stream." Water, along with this
key phrase from the King years, became her theme. King's words
stand out boldly on a convex, water-covered wall which
overlooks an inverted cone-shaped table with an off-center
base. The surface of this table is inscribed with the names of
40 who died in the struggle for civil rights between 1955 and
1968, as well as with landmark events of the period. This
element is also bathed in a film of moving water, which serves
to involve the viewer sensually--through sound, touch, and the
sight of his or her reflection--while the words engage the
intellect.
The two geometric elements of the Civil Rights Memorial,
although Minimalist in nature, are not completely devoid of
symbolic meaning. Lin has noted that the asymmetrical,
cone-shaped table looks different from every angle, a quality
which implies equality without sameness--an appropriate
sentiment in a memorial to civil rights. Lin says this
memorial will be her last and notes that she began and ended
the 1980s with memorial projects. She feels fortunate and
satisfied to have had the opportunity.
In 1993, Lin created a sculptural landscape work called
Groundswell at Ohio State University--a three level garden of
crushed green glass. The glass used in the effort reveal Lin's
environmentalist nature. Lin remains an active sculptor and
architect. In 1997 she began work on a 20,000 square foot
recycling plant. Lin currently lives in Vermont. She stays out
of the public eye as much as possible. Still, so much of her
work is so public and so innovative that publicity is hard to
avoid.
Maya Ying Lin (born 1959) was an American architect whose two
most important works in the 1980s were the Vietnam Veterans'
Memorial in Washington, D.C., and the Civil Rights Memorial in
Montgomery, Alabama.
Maya Ying Lin was born in 1959 in Athens, Ohio, a
manufacturing and agricultural town 75 miles southeast of
Columbus. Athens is also the home of Ohio University, where
both Lin's mother, a poet, and her late father, a ceramicist,
taught. The couple fled China just before the Communist
Revolution of 1949, leaving behind a prominent family which
had included a well-known lawyer and, perhaps significantly,
an architect. Lin's family in America includes her mother and
an older brother, Tan, who, like his mother, is a poet.
During her childhood Maya Lin found it easy to keep herself
entertained, whether by reading or by building miniature
towns. From an early age she excelled in mathematics, which
led her toward a career in architecture. While in high school
Lin took college level courses and worked at McDonalds. She
considered herself a typical mid-westerner in that she grew up
with little sense of ethnic identity, but admits to having
been somewhat "nerdy," since she didn't date or wear make-up
and found it enjoyable to be constantly thinking and solving
problems.
After graduating from high school, Lin enrolled at Yale to
study architecture. Her best-known work, the design for the
Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington, D.C., grew out of a
class project during her senior year at Yale. In 1981 her
entry was chosen out of a field of 1,421 unlabelled
submissions in a design competition which was open to all
Americans, not just professional architects. Lin was just 21
years old at the time and admits she worried that her
professional life had peaked before it had properly started.
Lin's design, in keeping with the competition criteria of
sensitivity to the nearby Lincoln Memorial and Washington
Monument, the inclusion of the names of all the dead and
missing of the war, and the avoidance of political statements
about the war, was simple. She proposed two 200-foot-long
polished black granite walls, which plunged ten feet below
grade to meet at an obtuse angle of 130 degrees. The two arms
were to point to the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument
and to be inscribed with the names of the approximately 58,000
men and women killed or missing in Vietnam. These names were
to be listed chronologically, according to the dates killed or
reported missing, instead of alphabetically, so they would
read, in Lin's words, "like an epic Greek poem." The memorial
was dedicated in November of 1982.
The story of the politics surrounding the choice of Lin's
design reads like an epic in itself. For the jury, the choice
of her proposal was unanimous. Jury chairman Grady Clay
described it as "an eloquent place where the simple setting of
earth, sky, and remembered names contains messages" for
everyone who will visit. The proposal was generally accepted
by veterans, but early on a small but vocal minority of
veterans and others appeared who attacked the design as "a
tribute to Jane Fonda," a "wailing wall for draft dodgers,"
and "a black gash of shame." Lin's galvanizing design was
perhaps best described by one veteran who likened it to a
Rorschach test for what each American thinks of the Vietnam
War. Such a description suggests that Lin was successful in
her intentions to create "a very psychological memorial ...
that brings out in people the realization of loss and a
cathartic healing process."
Maya Lin cited Edwin Lutyens's Memorial to the Missing of the
Somme Offensive at Thiepval, France, of 1927-1932, as an
influence on her concept of the Vietnam Memorial. This huge,
abstract geometric form consists of a central arch flanked by
two barrel-vaulted tunnels on which over 70,000 names are
inscribed. In addition to Lutyens, Lin has expressed interest
in the works of Minimalist artists Dan Flavin, Robert Irwin,
and James Turrell, who all experimented with light as an art
medium and were pioneers in the anti-object, anti-gallery
movement of the 1960s. Turrell's definition of art as a "part
of the realm of experience," where each viewer bears
responsibility for finding meaning in a work and where each
viewer's reaction becomes part of the work itself, could
equally be applied to Lin's memorial, with its lack of
traditional forms and highly polished black granite surface,
which reflects each visitor's unique response to the memorial.
After the Vietnam Memorial project, Lin returned to Yale for a
Master's degree. Her later projects included designs for a
Philadelphia stage set; a corporate logo; an outdoor gathering
place at Juniata College in Huntington, Pennsylvania; a park
near the Charlotte, North Carolina, coliseum; and a ceiling
for the Long Island Railroad section of Pennsylvania Station.
In addition, her lead and glass sculptures have been exhibited
at New York's Sidney Janis Gallery.
Maya Lin's second nationally recognized project was the design
of the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama,
commissioned by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Lin's
conception of the memorial grew out of her admiration of a
line in Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, which
proclaims that the struggle for civil rights will not be
complete "until justice rolls down like water and
righteousness like a mighty stream." Water, along with this
key phrase from the King years, became her theme. King's words
stand out boldly on a convex, water-covered wall which
overlooks an inverted cone-shaped table with an off-center
base. The surface of this table is inscribed with the names of
40 who died in the struggle for civil rights between 1955 and
1968, as well as with landmark events of the period. This
element is also bathed in a film of moving water, which serves
to involve the viewer sensually--through sound, touch, and the
sight of his or her reflection--while the words engage the
intellect.
The two geometric elements of the Civil Rights Memorial,
although Minimalist in nature, are not completely devoid of
symbolic meaning. Lin has noted that the asymmetrical,
cone-shaped table looks different from every angle, a quality
which implies equality without sameness--an appropriate
sentiment in a memorial to civil rights. Lin says this
memorial will be her last and notes that she began and ended
the 1980s with memorial projects. She feels fortunate and
satisfied to have had the opportunity.
In 1993, Lin created a sculptural landscape work called
Groundswell at Ohio State University--a three level garden of
crushed green glass. The glass used in the effort reveal Lin's
environmentalist nature. Lin remains an active sculptor and
architect. In 1997 she began work on a 20,000 square foot
recycling plant. Lin currently lives in Vermont. She stays out
of the public eye as much as possible. Still, so much of her
work is so public and so innovative that publicity is hard to
avoid.