Lin won the competition to design the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington, D.C., at the age of 22. After completing the stunning 220-foot-long polished black wall engraved with the names of those who died in the war, she returned to Yale to complete her master’s degree in architecture. Recent projects—TOPO, an environmental sculpture park in Charlotte, North Carolina; the 1993 Museum of African Art in New York City; and the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama–continue to incorporate sculptural and architectural techniques in public settings.
