NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, 1981—Sculptor and architect Maya Lin was just a 21-year-old senior at Yale University when her design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was chosen from over 1,400 entries.
Her winning design was initially created as a project for her funereal architecture class, and not for the competition. Only later did she decide to enter it.
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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, 1981\u2014Sculptor and architect Maya Lin was just a 21-year-old senior at Yale University when her design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was chosen from over 1,400 entries.<\/p>\n
Her winning design was initially created as a project for her funereal architecture class, and not for the competition. Only later did she decide to enter it.<\/p>\n
A bit of architectural lore is that her professor in that class gave her a B+ on the project. The professor, however, maintains that she actually received an A on that assignment, and that the B+ was her final grade for his course.<\/p>\n
Lin herself may not recall the specific grade she received, but she never forgot the harsh words of criticism he had for a different war memorial design of hers from an earlier assignment. The professor’s assessment? He told Lin, in anger, “If I had a brother who died in that war, I would never want to visit this memorial.”<\/p>\n
Lin’s classroom experience not only developed her design skills, but likely prepared her for the many criticisms she would hear and face on the way to making her groundbreaking concept a reality. Today, the memorial she designed has become one of the most visited sites in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
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