Traces of Maya Lin

Drawing of Maya Lin's 2002 WTC Memorial idea from the NY Times and, on the right, Reflecting Absence from LMDC

While the purpose of the Times article about selected WTC memorial Reflecting Absence is to explain how landscape architect Peter Walker joined original designer Michael Arad, the real story is about designer and WTC memorial juror Maya Lin. Lin, who designed the Vietnam War Memorial as well as the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, AL, as well as a dreamy Wave Field at University of Michigan, was a supporter of Reflecting Absence. The article also includes her September 2002 idea for a memorial the New York Times magazine commissioned, which bears a "superficial resemblance" to the winning design, mainly the pools where the towers once stood, though reporter David Dunlap stresses that Lin did not commandeer the jury into choosing Reflecting Absence.

greg.org does a better job explaing some of the issues with the minimalism that Lin inspired after her design gained power. But the unfavorable reaction to Reflecting Absence can't but remind us of the reaction when Lin's Vietnam War Memorial design was unveiled; the steering committee for that design wanted to add a statue of the soldiers with a flag at its apex. For more about Lin, watch Maya Lin: A Strong, Clear Vision, an Oscar winning documentary by Freida Lee Mock (an intelligent film, this won the year Hoop Dreams, a more expansive movie about the American dream, race, and class, was not nominated for a documentary Oscar).

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By Jen Chung in Arts and Events, News on January 8, 2004 1:52 AM

Comments [rss]

Gilles

I believe that the issue of how the Arad design (as presented when the 8 Finalists were revealed) became the Arad/Walker (or Walker/Arad) design is an important question being raised by Dunlap and Collins in their NYTimes article.

Indeed, it is not clear that another team member could simply be added to the team. But that is a question that the article seems to ask, but not answer.

Cheshire

The Maya Lin documentary was what finally got me to start writing the novel I'd been planning for a couple of years. She's a huge inspiration for me. (Seven years later, it would be nice if I could find the catalyst that will get me to finish said novel.)

I second the comment that she should have been asked to be the designer rather than a juror. That said, I'm glad the design she championed won; I hope that whatever design issues remain will be worked out before construction begins, and I trust that, like Lin's Vietnam memorial, critics will eventually come to treasure the new memorial.

Related: Maya Lin's Boundaries is a thoughtful book in which she recounts her many interesting projects, but she does so in a quietly visual way, much like her architecture and art.

larrydvm

Oh yeah, two more things: the site has a private/"families only" section--who's gonna be the bouncer there? How many degrees of separation or generations will be included? Do you have to be on a list? This is silly. And the design calls for an on-site staff to direct people to names on the wall, and explain the "seemingly random" adjancencies. That oughta last about a day and a half.

larrydvm

My distaste for the design is not that it's too minimal, but that it's too busy/complicated. The pools aren't going to reflect anything because 1. there's water falling into them and 2. they're below grade. I'm kind of getting annoyed with the characterization of them as "reflecting pools."

Christa

While the reflecting pools are attractive for their simplicity, and while I think Maya's work should have made her the designer rather than juror, I can't help but think of how poorly most water installations are maintained in the city. I can see the sky reflected in the pools on a beautiful day, but I also see wrappers and soda cans floating in the muck.

I may be alone in this, but I'd also like a memorial where I could place myself in the footprint. This idea would be more in keeping with Maya's Vietnam Memorial, where you become surrounded and overwhelmed by the names.

There is a large twisted piece of the Tradecenter just across the Hudson in Newark. It's the one place where I've felt the most like mourning.

boy

I am not an expert in art or psychology, but I think you are right to bring up the maya lin reaction.

It could be that people have a pent up anger/confusion/sadness inside and their need for answers, and their reluctance to see those answers in ways other than their own design, will cause this "outrage" at the monument.

People need art to deal with this struggle, and maybe this is an appropriate way. The reaction is nothing more than the reaction we have.

I'm pretty sure that overjoyous yelling and shouting would not be the most dignified way to approach this.

Sadness and anger at the result is perhaps our dignified response to the tragedy and its resulting artform.