The architect who designed the celebrated Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., shares the story of her life, her creative inspiration, and her subsequent designs. 40,000 first printing.

Boundaries

Arts & Photography

Lin, Maya

History & Criticism

Simon&Schuster

Renowned artist and architect Maya Lin's visual and verbal sketchbook—a unique view into her artwork and philosophy. Walking through this parklike area, the memorial appears as a rift in the earth -- a long, polished black stone wall, emerging from and receding into the earth. Approaching the memorial, the ground slopes gently downward, and the low walls emerging on either side, growing out of the earth, extend and converge at a point below and ahead. Walking into the grassy site contained by the walls of this memorial, we can barely make out the carved names upon the memorial's walls. These names, seemingly infinite in number, convey the sense of overwhelming numbers, while unifying these individuals into a whole.... So begins the competition entry submitted in 1981 by a Yale undergraduate for the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. -- subsequently called "as moving and awesome and popular a piece of memorial architecture as exists anywhere in the world." Its creator, Maya Lin, has been nothing less than world famous ever since. From the explicitly political to the un-ashamedly literary to the completely abstract, her simple and powerful sculpture -- the Rockefeller Foundation sculpture, the Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial, the Yale Women's Table, Wave Field -- her architecture, including The Museum for African Art and the Norton residence, and her protean design talents have defined her as one of the most gifted creative geniuses of the age. Boundaries is her first book: an eloquent visual/verbal sketchbook produced with the same inspiration and attention to detail as any of her other artworks. Like her environmental sculptures, it is a site, but one which exists at a remove so that it may comment on the personal and artistic elements that make up those works. In it, sketches, photographs, workbook entries, and original designs are held together by a deeply personal text. Boundaries is a powerful literary and visual statement by "a leading public artist" (Holland Carter). It is itself a unique work of art.

Humor & Entertainment

The first comprehensive monograph on the acclaimed American artist and architect, known for her environmental works and memorials that distill a tranquil yet texturally rich minimalism. Maya Lin is one of the most important public artists of this century. As an architecture student at Yale, Lin designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as a class project, entering it in the largest design competition in American history. Her winning proposal, a V-shaped wall of black stone etched with the names of 58,000 dead soldiers, has since become the most visited memorial in the nation’s capital. This visually rich volume presents 50 projects from the last three decades that demonstrate the scope of Lin’s creative process, featuring her own sketches and drawings and linked by her ideal of making a place for individuals within the landscape. With her environmental works Storm King Wavefield, Eleven-Minute Line (Sweden), and Pin River–Yangtze (Beijing), Lin maintains a balance between art and architecture, drawing inspiration from culturally diverse sources. From the moment she entered the national spotlight with her design for the Vietnam Memorial, Lin has been proposing ways of thinking and imagining that resist categories, genres, and borders.

Maya Lin: Topologies

Individual Artists

Rizzoli

Maya Lin

Lin, Grace

Clinton, Chelsea

Flint, Gillian

Philomel

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Books by Lin, Maya