13 Monuments by Maya Lin

Click here biographic information. Click here for a chronological list of major works.

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November 13, 1982 - Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Constitution Gardens, National Mall, Washington, DC (USA). Originally named 58,159 members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War and who died in service or are still unaccounted for. In 2007, ranked tenth on the "List of America's Favorite Architecture" by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Aligned with Lincoln Memorial & Washington Monument.

1989 - Eliza Evans Baker Peace Chapel, Baker-Henry Nature Preserve near Juniata College, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania (USA). Designed by Maya Lin. Image shows setting sun. Eliza Evans Baker was a peace educator. Juniata College has the Baker Institute of Peace & Conflict Studies (PACS). Entry #869 in the "Peace Movement Directory" by James Richard Bennett (2001).

1989 - Civil Rights Memorial (fountain), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Montgomery, Alabama (USA). By Maya Lin. A memorial to 40 people who died between 1954 (year of Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education) and 1968 (year of Martin Luther King's assassination.) Civil Rights Memorial Center (CRMC) added in 2005.

1993 - "The Women's Table," in front of Sterling Library, Yale University, New Haven, Conneticut (USA). "A spiral, engraved timeline that records the number of women in Yale programs from the founding of the University in the early 18th century through 1993."

1994 - "Eclipsed Time," Pennsylvania Station, New York City, New York (USA). "Sand-blasted glass, aluminum, stainless steel & fiber-optic sculpture. In ceiling at Seventh Avenue end of station. Maya Lin tries to get commuters to think differently about time & trains. 'I'm asking for a one-on-one relationship between the viewer & the work," the artist says. The large metal sculpture, installed overhead in the Long Island Railroad's main concourse, combines industrial craftsmanship with contemporary technology to tell time. 'When people think about clocks they usually envision hands or digital numbers,' explains Lin. 'Time is measured mathematically & specifically. I wanted to reflect time naturally & chose to use the concept of an eclipse."

March 19, 1999 - A small black cubical water table (about 1 meter on each side) under the barn's overhang. Only photos found on-line are distant & inadequate. A plaque in the floor near the water table credits Maya Lin Studio [in NY City], Martella Associates & Leon Williams (contractor); No name or purpose is ascribed to the water table. This is the least known of Lin's signature line of water tables.

March 19, 1999 - Langston Hughes Library, CDF Haley Farm, Children's Defense Fund (CDF), 1000 Alex Haley Lane, Clinton, Tennessee (USA). Conversion by Maya Lin of old cantilevered barn into a modern library. /// The library was dedicated during the three-day National Symposium on the Arts & Scholarship. Among more than 200 persons attending the symposium & dedication were Marian Wright Edelman, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dr. Maya Angelou, Dr. John Hope Franklin, Toni Morrison, Rita Dove (US poet laureate), Joyce Carol Oates, Walter Dean Myers, Nikki Giovanni, Donna Shalala (secreetary of HHS) & Alexis Herman (secretary of labor).

2000 - "Timetable," Pacard Electrical Engineering Building, Stanford University, Stanford, California (USA). "An impressive sculpture located near the David Packard Electrical Engineering Building. It's the perfect piece of art for engineering students - a huge slab of perfectly sculpted granite that is also a computer-controlled clock. It's called Timetable. Water continually flows over it without a ripple, a peaceful respite for harried students."

September 6, 2001 - Ecliptic Park, Rosa Parks Circle, Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA). Designed by Maya Lin. Intended to depict water as solid, liquid & vapor. "The heart of [the park] is a skating rink that converts into an amphitheater in the warmer months & is lit by tiny fiber-optic lights, which are embedded in its surface & laid out in a pattern representing a constellation of stars as of January 1, 2000." "Lin's first project incorporating art & architecture in one site. The rings create an optical illusion in which their slight slope also makes the surface of the rink appear to tilt with the earth's curvature." The park also contains a steaming "Water Table Fountain" [lower image], two small service buildings in steel & concrete, a pair of fountains & short, wandering paths through landscaped mounds of grass that rise and fall in waves about three feet high. /// Grand Rapid's famous LibDub video was made in & around the park in May 2011.

July 18, 2004 - Maya Lin also designed the nearby Riggio-Lynch Interfaith Chapel. /// The arc shaped chapel is intended to evoke the CDF logo (right image) drawn by Maria Cote (age 7).

October 25, 2005 - Water Table Fountain, Arts Plaza, University of California Irvine (UCI), Irvine, California (USA).

2009 - Storm King Wavefield, Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York (USA).