Lin, Maya Ying

Related Category: Architecture: Biographies

(mī´ə), 1959–, American architect and sculptor, b. Athens, Ohio. From an artistically distinguished Chinese family that immigrated to the United States in the 1940s, Lin was catapulted to prominence while a Yale undergraduate when her magisterially simple design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. (completed 1982) won a national competition. She cemented her status as a major figure with her sculptural design for the Civil Rights Memorial, Montgomery, Alabama (1989), and a monument commemorating coeducation at Yale (1991). More recently she has also executed other kinds of architectural projects, e.g., several private houses, and the Museum of African Art (1993) and a huge clock at Pennsylvania Station (1994), both in New York City. In 2001 she began an ecology-based seven-part installation along the Columbia River in Washington and Oregon that commemorates the Lewis and Clark expedition. She also designs furniture, and her sculpture has been widely exhibited. Lin is known for her visual poetry and sensitive mingling of highly abstract form with meaning.

See her Boundaries (2000); Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (documentary film, 1995).