Perhaps it was the Legos, or watching Mike Brady belly up to his drafting board on TV. In recent months and years, the likes of President Obama, Brad Pitt, Lenny Kravitz, and numerous other public figures have divulged a love of architecture, going so far as to say they once—or still—wanted to be architects. They, like so many of us, have a romantic view of the architecture world. It makes sense when you stop to think about it: there are few more creative, more transformative, more direct ways to literally make the world a better place. Almost nothing influences the quality of our lives more than the design of our homes, our schools, our workplaces, and our public spaces. Architecture can enliven and inspire. Three decades ago this year, at the tender age of 21, Maya Lin, then a Yale student, captivated the nation with her minimalist design for the Vietnam Memorial. Her subsequent work has won acclaim the world over. We need more architects like Maya Lin to lift us up. But there’s a problem: Lin is not considered an architect by the architecture profession itself. You’d think those within her chosen field would at least embrace Lin as an architect—if not as a luminary, an innovator, or even a genius. Instead, the architecture establishment does something astounding, demeaning, and perplexing: they relegate her to the title of “intern” because she focused on making architecture, rather rites of passage… (via GOOD)
