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Maya Lin

by Annie from San Francisco

I loved school. I studied like crazy. I was a Class A nerd.

Perhaps Maya Lin’s greatest achievement was designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. When she was a senior at Yale University, she entered a contest, along with several professors at her university. She entered the contest mainly because it was an assignment for a course she was taking. After she entered, she waited days until she heard the results. She had won. Surprisingly, she beat everyone’s design, including her professors at Yale. She was only 21.

Maya Lin
Maya Lin

Maya Lin was born on October 5, 1959, and was raised in Athens, Ohio. Both of Maya’s parents came from China and became professors at a university. Her dad became the dean of fine arts and her mother is a professor of Literature and English. Both of Maya’s family had an important and lasting influence on her.

When people found out that Maya had won, there were many complaints. People said that the use of a black wall was an insult to some people, and that since the Asians bombed the United States, her design should not be used since she was an Asian. People also demanded that the architecture should be a man’s work, because mostly men fought in the war. Some even tried to stop the construction of the memorial! Eventually, a statue of three soldiers and an American flag was built as a compromise. It stands near the wall and is considered to be part of the memorial.


The memorial is made of smooth black stone and is shaped like a V. The soldiers’ names are carved into the memorial in gold letters. Each of the walls is about 245 feet long and the two halves have 70 panels with approximately 58,000 names on it. People today can leave gifts on the ground and touch the names of their lost ones on the wall.


The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is not the only work Maya has done. An example of another memorial she did was the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Civil Rights Memorial, which honors the people who died during the Civil Rights Movement. Maya designed a black stone table that listed 53 events that happened during the movement and the 40 names of people that died during the movement. Behind the table is a black wall with the quote “....Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.

Another work she did was the Eclipsed Time in New York. This work of art is a clock that is supposed to reflect on a lunar eclipse. An outdoor piece she did was Wave Field, located at the University of Michigan. This piece includes grass shaped like mounds. Each mound is different than the next one. Some are shorter, some are thinner, and not one is alike. This piece was completed in 1995.

Page created on 10/4/2010 12:00:00 AM

Last edited 10/4/2010 12:00:00 AM

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