Maya Lin

In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, here is some more information about another famous Asian American that you might not know much about.

Maya Lin is the architect that designed the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington DC and the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.

Lin was born in Ohio to parents who emigrated from China. Her father was dean of the Ohio University College of Fine Arts and her mother is a poet and former literature professor at Ohio University. Her aunt was an artist and poet as well as the first female architect in modern China. She attended Yale University and got her Bachelor of Arts in 1981 and a Master of Architecture in 1986.

When she was 21 and still in college, Lin won a competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Her design was chosen out of 1422 submissions. This memorial was completed in 1982. Her design was to create an opening that symbolized the pain caused by war and casualties. This design became controversial because of Lin’s ethnicity, lack of experience, and design. Others complained that it didn’t include surviving veterans and the dark granite showed a negative attitude towards the war. After defending her design before Congress, it was decided that The Three Soldiers statue and an American Flag would be placed beside the memorial. This memorial is one of the most visited sites of the National Mall. Lin believes that she would have never won this contest if designs were submitted by name instead of a number.

The Civil Rights Memorial in Alabama is a memorial to 41 people killed during the Civil rights movement from 1954-1968. Lin’s design is based on the soothing and healing effect of water and was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr’s speech, “I Have a Dream.” The memorial is a fountain in the form of an inverted cone. The water flows over the base of the stone which includes the 41 names. You can touch the water and change it temporarily but then it returns to smoothness.

Lin prefers to be called a designer instead of an architect. She focuses on how space needs to be in the future and the emotions this space creates. She focuses more on memorialized time periods rather than figures so her works are more abstract.

Lin also designed the Museum of Chinese in America near Chinatown in New York City in 2009.