Maya lin architect professional#

She created it as part of a college architecture class that challenged students to make an entry for the national design competition for the planned memorial. Lin was aware of those costs, and she wanted to commemorate them with a fiercely modern design. More than 300,000 Americans were wounded during the war.

The war had profound psychological effects, and even 40 years later veterans suffer from PTSD, exposure to chemicals like Agent Orange and wounds they received in the war.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.įor veterans, the toll was even greater. Young adults lived in fear of the draft and the father of one of Lin’s high school friends was killed in combat. Television news brought the war into peoples’ living rooms in unprecedented-and graphic-detail. And while she had little personal connection to Vietnam, she did experience the cascading effects of the war: During the 1970s, the conflict indelibly impacted American life and popular culture.

Maya lin architect professional#

Though she majored in architecture, Lin was far from a professional architect. They escaped mainland China as young adults when it became clear that their families might be threatened by Maoist revolutionaries. A Chinese-American, Lin was born in Ohio, where her parents were professors. Maya Lin was still an undergraduate at Yale University when she beat out more than 1,400 competitors in a competition to design the memorial. It was all the more astonishing because of its creator, an unknown, 21-year-old student with no professional experience. The moment plans for the memorial were unveiled, it was clear the structure would be immediately recognizable-and controversial.