Artist/architect Maya Lin is the last Asian American to be profiled in the CBS PSAs for APA Heritage Month. At the age of 21, she was selected to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Maya Lin has gone on to create a remarkable body of work that includes large-scale site-specific installations, intimate studio artworks, architectural works and memorials. Throughout her career, she has maintained a careful balance between art and architecture.

Her architectural works have included institutional and private commissions, from a chapel and library for the Children’s Defense Fund to the Sculpture Center’s space in Long Island City to Aveda’s headquarters in downtown Manhattan to private residences throughout the Country. Ms. Lin completed the design for the Museum of Chinese in America’s new space in Manhattan’s Chinatown, which opened in the spring of 2009.

Maya Lin has been drawn to the critical social and historical issues of our time and addressed them in her memorials, including the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington DC, the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, AL, the Women’s Table at Yale University.

A committed environmentalist, Lin has consistently focused on environmental concerns, promoting sustainable building design in her architectural works, while making the environment the subject of her artworks. She is deeply committed to focusing attention back to the environment and to ask us to pay closer attention to the natural world.

Previous CBS PSAs
Olympic diver Sammy Lee
Senator Daniel Inouye
Congressman Dalip Singh Saund
Dr. David Ho
cellist Yo-Yo Ma

Julie Chen from The Talk on artist/architect Maya Lin