What was Maya Lins concept of the Memorial?
Quoting from the statement presented with Maya Lin’s submission: “Walking through this park, the memorial appears as a rift in the earth. A long, polished, black stone wall, emerging from and receding on either side, growing out of the earth, extend and converge at a point below and ahead. Walking into this grassy site contained by the walls of the Memorial, we can barely make out the carved names upon the Memorial’s walls. These names, seemingly infinite in number, convey the sense of overwhelming numbers, while unifying these individuals into a whole. The Memorial is composed not as an unchanging monument, but as a moving composition to be understood as we move into and out of it. The passage itself is gradual; the descent to the origin slow, but it is at the origin that the Memorial is to be fully understood. At the intersection of these walls, on the right side, is carved the date of the first death. It is followed by the names of those who died in the war, in chronological order.
