Maya Lin's original competition submission for the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial in
Washington, D.C.. Originally designed as a student project at
Yale University's School of Architecture in 1981, the memorial is a black
granite wall, in the shape of a V, on which the names of American servicemen killed or missing in action from the
Vietnam War are 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."
Image credit: Maya Lin