MAYA LIN

'Maya Ying Lin' (; born October 5, 1959) is an American artist who has become known for her work in architecture. However, she is not a legally registered architect. She is the niece of Lin Huiyin. Her best known work is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Contents

Early life

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Subsequent work after the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Bibliography

Quotes

References

External links

Early life

She was born in Athens, Ohio, daughter of Henry Huan Lin, a ceramist and former Dean of the Ohio University College of Fine Arts, and Julia Chang Lin, formerly Professor of Literature at Ohio University. ^[1] She studied at Yale University (B.C. 1981, A.D. 1986).
In 1987, Yale conferred upon her an honorary Doctorate Degree in Fine Arts. Ms. Lin is married to a New York photography dealer and has two daughters. ^{[2] [3]}

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

In 1981, at age 21 and while still an undergraduate, she won a public design competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The cut stone masonry "Wall" officially opened to the public on November 11, 1982. The wall was granite and V-shaped, with one side pointing to the Lincoln Memorial and the other to the Washington Monument. The design was originally controversial but has since been acclaimed. ^{[4] [5]}
If the competition hadn't been a blind one, in which designs were submitted by number instead of name, "I never would have won," she says. Some veterans saw the design as insulting but eventually compromised on a statue located near the monument. ^[3]

Subsequent work after the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Lín, who now owns and operates Maya Lin Studios in New York City, went on to design other structures, including the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama (1989) and the Wave Field at the University of Michigan (1995).
In 1994, she was the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary ''. The title comes from an address she gave at Yale where she speaks of the monument design process.
In 2000, Lin re-emerged in public life with a book ''Boundaries''.^[7] Also in 2000, she agreed to act as the artist and architect for the Confluence Project, a series of outdoor installations at historical points along the Columbia River and Snake River in the state of Washington. This is the largest and longest project that she has undertaken so far.^[8]
In 2002, Lin was elected Alumni Fellow of the Yale Corporation, the governing body of Yale University (Upon whose campus sits another of Lin's designs: the Women's Table - designed to commemorate the role of women at Yale University.), in an unusually public contest. Her opponent was W. David Lee, a local New Haven minister and graduate of the Yale Divinity School who was running on a platform to build ties to the community with the support of Yale's unionized employees. Lin was supported by Yale's President Richard Levin, other members of the Yale Corporation, and was the officially endorsed candidate of the Association of Yale Alumni.
In 2003, Lin served on the selection jury of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition. Some have attributed the trend toward minimalism and abstraction among the entrants, finalists, and current World Trade Center Memorial to Lin's presence on the Jury.
In 2005, Lin was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.
Lin was commisioned by Ohio University to design what is known as punch card park, a landscape literally designed to resemble a punch card, supposedly based on Lin's memories of their early use in universities. The park is a large open space with rectangular mounds and voids on the ground. At first the park was criticized for being relatively uninviting and lacked trees or structures to shade students from the sun. In addition from the ground level it is difficult to tell what the park is supposed to look like, though from an arial view it does resemble a punch card. The university since planted trees around the parks perimeter making it a more popular place for students to gather.

Bibliography

★ ''Maya Lin: Topologies (Artist and the community)'' (1998) ISBN 1888826053

★ ''Maya Lin: [American Academy in Rome, 10 dicembre 1998-21 febbraio 1999]'' (1998) ISBN 8843568329

★ ''Timetable: Maya Lin'' (2000) ASIN B000PT331Y (2002, ISBN 0937031194)

★ ''Boundaries'' (2000) ISBN 0684834170 (2006, ISBN 0743299590)

Quotes

★ "In all my work I have tried to create works that present you with information allowing you the chance to come to your own conclusions; they ask you to think."

★ "The process I go through in art and architecture, I actually want it to be almost childlike."

References

1. http://ohiobio.org/lin.htm
2. http://www.nndb.com/people/647/000025572/
3. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/visualart/maya.shtml
4. http://www.gale.com/free_resources/whm/bio/lin_m.htm
5. http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Maya_Lin.html
6. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/visualart/maya.shtml
7. Maya Lin emerges from the shadows
8. A Meeting Of Minds

External links

★ Biography, essays, interviews, and video clips from PBS series "art:21" Season 1 (2001

★ Peace Chapel at Juniata College in Huntingdon, PA

★

★ Maya Lin's Earth Day Message of Hope on Earth Day 2006 at The Nature Conservancy

★ Confluence Project located at sites in both Washington and Oregon

★ Thompson Gale Publishers, Review of her work.