Maya Lin

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Maya Ying Lin (Chinese: 林瓔; pinyin: Lín Yīng; born October 5, 1959) is a Chinese American artist who has become known for her work in architecture. However, although she has become a successful designer in this field, she is not yet registered, and is therefore unable to legally use "architect" as an official title. She is the niece of Lin Huiyin. Her best known work is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

She was born in Athens, Ohio and studied at Yale. 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.

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 Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. The title comes from an address she gave at Yale where she speaks of the monument design process.

In 2000, Lin 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. ^[1]

In 2002, Lin was elected Alumni Fellow of the Yale Corporation, the governing body of 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.

She is married to Daniel Wolf, and they have two young children.

[edit] 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."