Boundaries [Hardcover]

Maya Lin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0684834170 | ISBN-13: 978-0684834177 | Publication Date: October 5, 2000 | Edition: 1ST

"Walking through this park-like area, the memorial appears as a rift in the earth -- a long, polished black stone wall, emerging from and receding into the earth. Approaching the memorial, the ground slopes gently downward, and the low walls emerging on either side, growing out of the earth, extend and converge at a point below and ahead. Walking into the grassy site contained by the walls of this 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..."

So begins the competition entry submitted in 1981 by a Yale undergraduate for the design of the "Vietnam Veterans Memorial" in Washington, D.C. -- subsequently called "as moving and awesome and popular a piece of memorial architecture as exists anywhere in the world." Its creator, Maya Lin, has been nothing less than world famous ever since. From the explicitly political to the unashamedly literary to the completely abstract, her simple and powerful sculpture -- the Rockefeller Foundation sculpture, the Southern Poverty Law Center "Civil Rights Memorial," the Yale "Women's Table, Wave Field" -- her architechture, including The Museum for African Art and the Norton residence, and her protean design talents have defined her as one of the most gifted creative geniuses of the age.

"Boundaries" is her first book; an eloquent visual/verbal sketchbook produced with the same inspiration and attention to detail as any of her other artworks. Like her environmental sculptures, it is a site, but one which exists at a remove so that it may comment on the personal and artistic elementsthat make up those works. In it, sketches, photographs, workbook entries, and original design are held together by a deeply personal text. "Boundaries" is a powerful literary and visual statement by "a leading public artist." (Holland Carter). It is itself a unique work of art.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

After designing the starkly symbolic Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., when she was still an undergraduate, Maya Lin might have been doomed to spend the rest of her architecture career vainly trying to top herself. But 18 years later, her concerns clearly have nothing to do with self-aggrandizement. In Boundaries, Lin's lucid, soft-spoken collection of writings, she discusses how her work evolves, after a lengthy gestation, as a way of heightening viewers' awareness of a specific environment and perception of the passage of time. This temporal aspect can be a sequence of historical events (as in the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama) or a purely aesthetic quality, like the shifting play of light over a grassy field of sculpted earth (Wave Field at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor). "I like to think of my work as creating a private conversation with each person," Lin writes, "no matter how public each work is and no matter how many people are present."

Understandably, Lin writes in greatest detail about the Vietnam memorial, a high-profile commission fraught with controversy because of its unusual form as well as the age, gender, and ethnicity of its American-born architect. But this engrossing, amply illustrated book also details the thinking and experimentation behind myriad other projects, including elemental sculptures, interiors, and furniture designed with an unusual degree of consideration for the user's needs. Influenced by her ceramist father, Lin always gravitated toward working directly with malleable materials--an experience that complements the rational precision of plans and blueprints (the Vietnam memorial first took shape as a mound of mashed potatoes). Boundaries reflects the same blend of close analysis, intuition, and quiet humility that marks Lin's public projects. --Cathy Curtis

Review

Newsweek Is Lin an artist or an architect? Given her ability to maintain her aesthetic integrity in a string of projects that have won over both critics and the public, magician is more like it. -- Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1ST edition (October 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684834170
• ISBN-13: 978-0684834177
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 8.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #812,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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103 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant artist explains her work, October 17, 2000

By 

Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Boundaries (Hardcover)

Maya Lin's "Boundaries" is much like her three-dimensional creations - austere, at once both subtle and direct, outwardly detached, and ultimately effective in evoking a deep emotional response from within the beholder rather than imposing an exterior sentiment. Lin, of course, first came to prominence two decades ago when, as an undergraduate architecture student, she won the prestigious design competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Her concept, popularly known as "The Wall," was fiercely criticized at that time for its radical departure from traditional memorial designs, yet from its unveiling in 1982 the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has been accorded widespread recognition for its profound aptness and - there is no better word - genius. Although Lin's work since that remarkable debut has been on a smaller physical scale, it continues to follow a line of imaginative external simplicity in use of shape and space, covertly deceptive in masking emotional complexity beneath. The title of the book is meant to express Lin's view that she and her creations inhabit the boundary between distinctly different qualities - architecture-art, natural-urban, inside-outside, Asian-American - simultaneously being neither and both.

"Boundaries" is not an autobiography. Maya Lin speaks through her architecture and her sculptures, and this book unwaveringly focuses upon that work and the creative process behind it. While the photographs in the volume are effective in presenting a broad impression of design and form, the real pictures are those drawn by Lin's words. For a visual artist, she has a rare appreciation of verbal power and substance. In fact, Maya Lin regards words as a vital basis for her designs, the reflection of her own background: her father was a ceramist and her mother a poet. As a physical object, the book itself has purposely been given a unique character to fittingly express Lin's artistic vision, occupying the boundary between "art book" and "reading book". The text literally begins on the inside front cover and spans the entirety of the volume, ending only on the inside back cover. Even the jacket has been incorporated as a harmonious, integral component of the whole. Like Lin's creations erected in public spaces and those fashioned in her studio, "Boundaries" is an exquisite embodiment of a meeting between restraint and stimulation.

63 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well conceived and executed, October 6, 2000

By 

Erik M (Baltimore, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Boundaries (Hardcover)

Maya Lin's book 'Boundaries' is a well conceived and beautifully executed book on the artistic process. The detail in which she describes her thoughts and ideas crystalizing into artwork is very readable. None of the chapters are filled with hollow artistic philosophy as I often find in books on contemporary art and atistic processes. The overall design of the book is also quite stunning. Many photos from Lin's work and studio are included. She even goes as far as describing why the book has been created at a particular size. In my opinion, this is one of the best books I've ever read on artistic creation and process.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, May 16, 2004

By 

wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Boundaries (Hardcover)

There are two ways to read this book, as Lin points out in the preface. First is just as a coffee table picture book. In that role, "Boundaries" gives a photographic tour of many varied monuments and installations. Lin is best known for the Vietnam Veteran's memorial. At the time, it was an unprecendented look and a deep controversy. Since then, I think it has become what Lin had hoped: one of the most personally involving war memorials ever. Lin has moved on since then, and this book shows many of her more recent works.

Although her family heritage is Chinese, Lin identifies herself as American. That gives her the freedom to use concepts from many Asian traditions. Many of her later works show a sense that I see as Zen-like. They are centered on stone, water, earth, and light. Like that first memorial, they invite the viewer to touch and become involved in the work. "Waves", for example, is a large-scale earthwork to be explored, offering surprising privacy in an open, sunlit lawn.

The second reading of this book comes from its text. It explains Lin's approach to her work. I was quite surprised to fined out how important collaboration is for her. Most of her installations are undertaken with archtitects, writers, or preparators of various kinds, quite opposite the 'lonely artist' stereotype. I was also surprised to learn that her first conception of most pieces is narrative, not pictorial. To me, translating word into image and structure is a complete mystery. My own thoughts work in the other direction. That difference intrigues me.

The book itself is a pleasant artifact. It's well printed, well organized, and displays some thoughtful, unusual typography. It's a vehicle well suited to the material it carries.

"Boundaries" was printed in 2000. That means that the catalog of Lin's work has developed since then. More of her work surely exists that was locked out by the publication date. I look forward to the next book documenting her work, and I look forward to her future development as an artist.