Maya Lin is the world-renowned architect of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, and one of the most important public artists of our times. Her parents fled China just before the Communist takeover in 1949, eventually settling in Athens, Ohio, where both became professors at Ohio University. As a 21-year-old architecture student at Yale, Lin designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as a class project, then entered it in the largest design competition in American history. Her striking proposal, a V-shaped wall of black stone, etched with the names of 58,000 dead soldiers, beat out the submissions of 1,420 other entrants. She encountered ferocious criticism when her unconventional design was selected, but her inspiring vision has since become the most-visited memorial in the nation's capital. Since the early 1980s, she has pursued simultaneous careers as artist and architect, creating large-scale site-specific installations and intimate studio artworks, as well as architectural works and monuments. Among her significant works as an architect over the last decade are the Sculpture Center in Long Island City, the Manhattanville Sanctuary and Environmental Learning Lab, and the New York's Museum of the Chinese in America, as well as a number of innovative private residences, notably the Box House in Telluride, Colorado. Her studio artwork has been exhibited in museums around the world. A film study of her career, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. In 2009, Maya Lin was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. In this video podcast, recorded at the Academy of Achievement's 2000 gathering in Scottsdale, Arizona, Maya Lin presents slides of her major architectural works, and relates them to her love of landscape and nature. She discusses the study and analysis of art, while emphasizing the subjective, magical aspect of aesthetic experience.