Maya Lin: a Strong Clear Vision

International Comm
10/25/11
Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision
This film was an in depth coverage of a young lady named Maya Lin who was awarded the opportunity to be the Vietnam Veterans Memorial designer. This film portrays her story about architecture and her many trials and successes as an architect that has designed some of the most influential and important monuments to commemorate heroism, creativity, history, art, and desire, just to name a few.
The story starts with a few men that are Vietnam veterans who saw the need to create a memorial for all those that were lost in the war. They created a corporation and proceeded to obtain permission and the permits to build a monument in Washington DC amongst all the many powerful and popular memorials that already stand. After the permits were obtained the men that headed the efforts then had the challenge of designing a powerful memorial to represent those who died in vain for their country, one that would honor and be universally revered and accepted.
Upon many personal ideas of what the design should be and many considerations of which architect should design the memorial, the committee heading the project, decided that it would be best to hold a national competition for all those who wished to submit a rendering of what they thought it should look like. The word was then spread about this competition nationwide to any all people.
Once the competition was launched the committee started to receive hundreds of submissions. Meanwhile, a young 21-year-old college student of Yale University, Maya Lin, stumbled upon the ad and thought it would be a great way to submit her idea and sketches of what the monument should look like. Not thinking that her design would even be considered, Lin still took precise consideration in her design. Her sketch, a V-shaped wall of black stone, etched with the names of 58,000 dead soldiers, was very simple and didn’t have much detail to it, but the concept was deep and...