Maya Lin: Topologies

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.

John McPhee has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1965. Michael Brenson is a critic, scholar, and teacher. William L. Fox is director of the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art. Paul Goldberger is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. He was previously the architecture critic for The New Yorker. Philip Jodidio has written numerous books on architecture and art. Lisa Phillips is director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Dava Sobel is a writer of popular expositions of scientific topics.