Value of life

In 1981, Maya Lin, at age 21, submitted her design for Vietnam Veterans Memorial Public Competition.

It is a black granite wall with a V-shape, stretches over the green grass plain. It is so sharp that it seems like a wound on the ground, like a wound caused by wars in our memory, which would never be healed. The reflection of visiters overlape carved names of 58,253 fallen soldiers on the mirror-like surface. It’s like a door between the livings and the dead, through this window they see each other, they communicate with time.

The design was initially controversial for what was an unconventional and non-traditional design for a war memorial. Think about the meaning of war memorial, the way Lin did it is just like what Postmodernists were seeking “re-creation of traditional ‘classical’ values”. A statue of soldiers’ image could merely define those casualties’ occupations, not the feeling we receive from wars or the lesson we learn from history. Those are truly the core value of our life. It doesn’t matter how tall it is, how precious material it made of or how vivid scene it is if the memorial never arouse our emotional reactions. Postmodern architects tried to reform the value of relationship between cities and people, just like Lin tried to express the value of connection between wars and human.

Eventually, she won the competition.