Memorial is one of the most successful memorials in the nation. The active reading is to come close, to internalize those names. Steven: Maya Lin was brilliant in creating a public space and yet Three-dimensionally, which is also powerful, but in a way that feels much more publicĪnd far less intimate. Beth: One that shows soldiers in a very naturalistic way, Ultimately that was resolved by a much more naturalistic sculpture adjacent to the main memorial. There was backlash alsoĪbout the abstraction. Had been revealed, there was real backlash and racism. It's interesting to think about what might have happened had they known who this application was from. Maya Lin at that point, wasĪn undergraduate at Yale, she was an architecture student, There were 1,400 entries,Ĭompletely anonymous. It's interesting to thinkĪbout how the committee didn't know who was Maya Lin was. Steven: How can one createĪ meaningful monument in the late 20th century? What does it mean to strip away all of the representational form? What does it mean to create something so subconsciously abstract and yet also so powerful and so meaningful? Beth: Evidently theĬommittee that judged this decided that thisĪbstraction would be best. In the National Gallery where you have a hero leading an anonymous army with an allegorical figure representing peace and death, this combination of allegory and heroism that's usually in memorials, it's completely absent here. The Shaw memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens Nelson in Trafalgar Square or we might think about To military heroes like the monument to Lord History of war memorials, we often think about memorials Beth: It's a veryĭifferent experience than most previous war memorials. Into the densest middle of the monument, it becomesĪbsolutely overwhelming. Powerful accumulation of all of the names. Lives whereas a name might recall everything about that person. The picture represents someone at a particular time and a particular place as one moment in their Beth: Maya Lin talks about the name as an abstraction that in fact, means more to family and loved ones than a picture. You have this place for family to come, to gather, to reflect on that name. Got that abstraction, you also have this very concrete reality. More than 58,000 times, but even though you've Steven: The names become a symbol of this person multiplied As we move down theĬenter, the path widens and the granite rises more Goes down toward the right as we're facing the wallĪnd then picks up again on the low edge of the left side and then towards the center again. You walk down in, you find the name of your loved one embedded within the chronological sequence of the death of all of these soldiers,Īnd then you walk back out. That in time would heal." She writes,"That theĮxperience of the monument would help people to come to terms with the death of their loved ones." Steven: There is a real Imagined taking a knife and cutting into the earth, opening it up and initial violence and pain "I had a simple impulse to cut into the earth. She first visited the site that she wanted to reveal that edge. That we could not enter, but which was there for us to see. Substance of the monument and that the reflectivity of the granite opened up into another world Was that it was the names that were the reality, the Stone is so reflective, it becomes a mirror and really all that seems to have substance is the rougher surface of What happens as you walk down this path, you sink into the earth. More than 58,000 names and in fact, more names are being added. In a way they are walls, but it's very thin, sunk into the ground and inscribed with the names of the servicemen who died Beth: Although theĪrchitect didn't like to refer to these as walls, Highly-reflective black granite that actually points toīoth of those monuments. Steven: It's this very long series of slabs of stone, this Memorial to the nation's past, bringing together the Maya Lin, the architect of the memorial sought about uniting the Beth: Which is situated right between the Washington MonumentĪnd the Lincoln Memorial. on the mall at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. Diamonds" by Scalding Lucy) Steven: We're in
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