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Famed architect Maya Lin discusses how her works are inspired by their environments
During a recent talk on campus, alumna architect Maya Lin '81 B.A., '86 M.Arch. used slides of her own work -- from memorial monuments to household furniture -- to demonstrate that the idea of the artist is a constant that transcends genre.
Lin's talk, titled "The Continuity of the Art Idea," was the second-to-last presentation in the fall series of DeVane Lectures on the theme "Ideals without Ideologies: Yale's Contribution to Modern Architecture." She spoke on Dec. 3 before a packed house in the Yale University Art Gallery's McNeil Lecture Hall.
Lin is "one of the best known and respected architects of her generation," said Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the School of Architecture and the fall's William Clyde DeVane Lecturer, in his introductory remarks. Her works include the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. and The Women's Table on the Yale campus, which commemorates coeducation at the University.
In her talk, Lin demonstrated how her works are often inspired by, and become part of, their environment.
The alumna began by showing a picture of a project she did while still at Yale. Lin placed a cluster of aluminum rods, which she painted green and black, among reeds on the bank of the Mill River in East Rock Park. Barely distinguishable from the surrounding reeds when looked at face-on, the rods were carefully aligned to appear as an independent configuration, whose shape changed with the angle from which it was viewed. The reed sculpture, which no longer exists, "responded to the environment in a special way," said Lin.
Another project illustrating how Lin incorporates the surrounding environment into her work is the landscape sculpture "Wave Field," on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The 1996 work is on the site of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Building, where aerospace engineering is taught.
Wanting to reflect the context of the particular site, Lin says, she came up with the idea of creating a field of waves to represent the flow of air -- the most important element of aeronautic engineering. The resulting 90-square-foot field of grass-covered waves of earth, like her reed sculpture, is transformed not just by the position of the viewer, but also by the time of day, and the shifting of the sunlight with the seasons.
Lin's attempts to integrate the design of her work not just in its physical surroundings, but also in its purpose, is perhaps best illustrated in the chapel she designed for the headquarters of the Children's Defense Fund in Tennessee. Mindful of the organization's slogan, "The Sea is Large; My Boat is Small," Lin designed the building in the shape of a boat.
Lin also showed examples of the furniture that she has designed for private homes, including an entire dining room set which folds in a box, as well as sculptures she has done only to exhibit.
Perhaps one of her most unusual projects was the ice skating rink Lin designed for a park in Grand Rapids Michigan. In order to give the impression that the surface of the ice was at an angle to the earth -- which, she informed her audience, is a physical impossibility -- she changed the rim of the rink, making it higher on one side, and thus achieving what she wanted.
Another innovation she introduced was to light the rink from below the surface of the ice. The idea, she said, was to suggest the reflection of the constellation of stars above.
-- By Dorie Baker
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