"At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them" -- Laurence Binyon "For the Fallen"

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, originally designed as a student project by Maya Lin at Yale University's School of Architecture in 1981, has become a profound symbol that has served to unify and reconcile a nation sorely divided by a foreign entanglement. Lin envisioned a black granite wall, in the shape of a V, on which the names of the American military dead and missing would be inscribed. The architect hoped that "these names, seemingly infinite in number, [would] convey the sense of overwhelming numbers, while unifying these individuals into a whole."

There have been countless interpretations of her design that reflect on the design's powerful simplicity and the emotional complexity of its meaning. At the core of the design is the is the unavoidable truth that the cost of war is human life.

Popularly known as the Wall, this communal gravestone had personalized the war in a way that television could not. It has become a profound national symbol and a point of reference for a new tradition of American memorial structures that name the individual dead, reviving public interest in and support for this building form.

Since its unveiling in 1982, "the Wall"--has become a point of reference, inspiring a new generation of American memorials. Maya Lin's drawing is one of 1,421 design-competition submissions documented in the Library of Congress as part of the Papers of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.

Architect/artist Paul Stevenson Oles recalled about his role in the initial phase of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial: ". . . shortly after we had learned our entry had not been selected as the winner, I received a frantic telephone call . . . from the competition's Professional Advisor Paul Sprieregen, informing me that the drawings of the winner's original submission were so vague - beautiful, indeed, but highly ambiguous. . . . He asked me if I could produce, say, three drawings for the purpose of explaining Maya Lin's design, in a hurry . . . In those heady hours, Maya asked, shyly, if "she could be included in the picture." I agreed, conditionally, if she would be willing to appear on the arm of the illustrator

Medium : Reproductions made from a scan of the original

Created/Published : 1981

Creator : Paul Stevenson Oles, artist

Part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Records housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress

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Product #: ppmsca05608