Maya Lin is an award winning Asian American architect. Lin was born in Athens, Ohio, in 1959. Her parents had come from China to America in the 1940s. They both taught at the University of Ohio. Her father was a ceramicist and the art school’s dean. Her mother was a poet and a professor of literature.
Embed from Getty ImagesEducation
Lin was a talented student. She studied at Yale University. She wanted to major in both sculpture and architecture. The school wouldn’t let her do that. So she enrolled in the architecture programme. However, she still took classes in sculpture.
Biography
A nationwide competition for the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was held in 1980. The memorial was to be constructed in Washington, D.C. The location was between the Lincoln Memorial and the capital.
Its final design was two long, black granite walls. The walls were joined together to form the giant V. On the wall were the names of 58,000 men and women who were killed or missing during the war. The names were written in the order in which they had died or had been reported missing. Design and construction were opposed in favour of a more traditional design.
However, everything changed as people started to visit the monument. Thousands have come to find the names of their loved ones killed in the war. Many of them made rubbings of the engraved names. The memorial has become a place of healing.
She designed the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1987. The monument was designed in two parts. There was a black granite disc about 2 metres above sea level first. Twenty-one essential events in the civil rights movement have been written on it. Forty individuals were listed who died in the fight.
Recent works
Redesign of Neilson Library at Smith College
Lin redesigned the 200,000-square-foot building to provide one-stop access to 40,000 linear feet of archived content and a new digital media hub. The centre atrium’s oculus, a round skylight that captures and magnifies external light to create private study nooks, is surrounded by a reflective, curved glass wall. Additionally, she made the grounds public to honour Frederick Law Olmsted’s initial design for the campus as a botanical garden. Lin demonstrated that her whisper still carries weight by transforming the structure into a serene sanctuary for learning.
Lin Work Recognition
Lin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.
Sources
Byars, M., Riley, T. (2004). (2004). The Encyclopedia of Design. Publishing by Laurence King.
List of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. (2023, March 13). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidential_Medal_of_Freedom_recipients
Oh, Lobb, N. [1996]. 16 Outstanding Asian Americans. Publisher of J. Weston Walch.
Presidential lectures: Maya Lin-University of Stanford. https://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturer/lin/
More Architects
-
Otto Wagner: An Architectural Colouring Book
By the time the Viennese architect Otto Wagner (1841-1918) began publishing the drawings included in this colouring book, he had already spent much of his career designing historicist-style buildings. But his attitude was changing, and he completely ignored those early designs in time.Read More →
-
Charles Plumet (1861 – 1928) French Architect Designer
In the year 1861, Charles Plumet was born. As an architect, he built structures in the mediaeval and early French Renaissance styles. He worked on interiors and furniture designs in Art Nouveau styles with Tony Selmersheim (1871–1971). Between 1896 and 1901, Charles Plumet joined l’Art dans Tout (Art in Everything), an association of architects, painters,…
-
Paul Chemetov (b.1928) French Furniture Designer
Paul Chemetov, a French architect and furniture designer, studied at Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts and founded AUA in 1961. He designed low-cost housing and chair designs, earning the 1980 National Grand Prize for Architecture.Read More →
-
Robert Yorke Goodden (1909-2002) British Architect Designer
He was in private practice since 1932. Wallpapers, domestic machine-pressed glassware for Chance Bros., 1953 coronation hangings for Westminster Abbey, gold and silverwares, ceremonial metalwork, glassware for King’s College, Cambridge, 1961 metal-foil murals for the oceanliner Canberra, engraved and sandblasted glass murals for Pilkington. Read More →
-
Hans Poelzig (1869-1936), German architect and designer
Hans Poelzig (1869-1936) was a German architect and designer who studied at Technische Hochschule, Berlin Charlottenburg and Technische Hocschule, Berlin. He worked in Breslau, Dresden, Preussiche Akademie der Kiinste in Berlin, and became a professor at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin Charlottenburg. He was influenced by Expressionism, Reinhardt’s Schumann Circus, and the Grosses Schauspielhaus in…
-
Philip Webb (1831 – 1915) British architect and designer
Philip Webb was a British architect and designer; he was born in Oxford. Between 1849-52 he trained under architect John Billing in Reading. Read More →
-
Marco Zanuso Sr. (1916 – 2001) Italian architect and designer
Marco Zanuso Sr. was an Italian architect and designer. He was born in Milan. He studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano, to 1939. Read More →
-
Pierre Vágó (1910 – 2002) Hungarian Architect and Designer
Pierre Vago was a Hungarian Architect and designer. He studied at the École Spéciale d’Architecture, Paris. He settled in France in 1928, where he was editor-in-chief on three issues of the review L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui. After World War 2, he was active in reviving the journal and set up his architecture office. In 1948 he left…
-
Kurt Thut (1931 – 2011) Swiss Designer and Manufacturer
Kurt Thut (b. 1931-2011) was born in Möriken, Switzerland. In his father’s workshop, while attending the School of Art and Design in Zurich, Thut improved his carpentry skills.Read More →
-
Helen Abson (b.1942) Australian Architect and Fabric Designer
Helen Abson, who trained as an architect, is an Australian designer. She pursued architecture for five years; founded ZAB Design where she designed fabrics that exhibited a preoccupation for texture achieved through pattern and colour.Read More →
-
Bruce J. Talbert (1838 – 1881) Scottish architect and designer
Bruce J. Talbert (1838-1881) was a British architect and designer. He was born in Dundee, Scotland. He was apprenticed to cabinet-carver Millar and subsequently to Charles Edwards, an architect in Dundee, who worked on the Corn Exchange Hall. Read More →
-
Frederick Kiesler Austrian, American Designer
Frederick John Kiesler, an Austrian-American architect, theoretician, theatre designer, artist, and sculptor, was born Friedrich Jacob Kiesler in Czernowitz, Austria-Hungary Empire (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine), in 1890. 1965 saw his passing.Read More →
-
Mario Botta (b.1943) Swiss Architect and Designer
While the space arrangements in this structure are inconsistent, its relationship to its site, separation of living from service spaces, and deep window recesses echo his stark, robust and towering style. Read More →
-
Marcel Breuer (1902 – 1981) Hungarian architect and industrial designer
He attended the Vienna Akademie der bildenden Künste in 1920 and the Bauhaus in Weimar from 1920 to 1924. In 1920, he moved to Vienna, intending to become a painter and sculptor. However, he left the Akademie der bildenden Kunste because he was displeased with it, and he enrolled at the Bauhaus in Weimar, where…
-
Pierre Patout (1879 – 1965) French Architect and Designer
Following the war, he collaborated with his friend Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, a decorator. They worked together on designs for the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, which took place in Paris from April to October 1925 and gave the style its name. Read More →
-
Nigel Coates (b.1949) English architect and designer
He co-founded Branson Coates Architecture with Doug Branson in 1985 before opening his architecture and design studio in 2006. He was a partner in the Branson Coates architecture and design studio and the founder of the radical NATO (Narrative Architecture Today, established in London in 1983) design group (established in 1985).Read More →
-
Bruno Mathsson (1907 – 1988) Swedish Designer & Architect
Mathsson grew up in the town of Värnamo in Sweden’s Smland region, the son of a master cabinet maker. After a brief period of schooling, he began working in his father’s gallery.Read More →
-
Alberto Rosselli (1921-76), Italian architect and industrial designer
Alberto Rosselli (1921-76) Italian architect and industrial designer. He was born in Palermo. He was professionally active in Milan. Read More →
-
What Was Charles Gwathmey’s Impact on American Architecture?
He was the son of American painter Robert Gwathmey and photographer Rosalie Gwathmey, and was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. Charles Gwathmey studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Read More →
-
Kisho Kurokawa (b.1934) Japanese Architect and Designer
In 1960, at the age of 26, he made his debut into the world as one of the founders of the Metabolism Movement. Read More →
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like
Maya Romanoff American textile designer – Encyclopedia of Design
Maya Romanoff was an American Textile Designer. He studied at the University of California at Berkeley. When he saw tie-dyed t-shirts at Woodstock Music Festival in 1969, Maya Romanoff discovered the magic of dying t-shirts. His profound fascination with colours and fabric led him to start the Skokie Corporation, a business that has grown into $18 million company known for its handmade wall coverings.
Sydney Art Deco by Peter Sheridan – Encyclopedia of Design
Longlisted for the Indie Book Awards 2020 for Illustrated Non-Fiction* For the first time, Sydney’s Art Deco buildings of the 1930s and 1940s are identified and gloriously displayed with contemporary photographs alongside archival images. Sydney Art Deco explores the impact of the Art Deco style on the landscape and life of Sydney during the 1930s and 1940s.