TY  - JOUR
AU  - Galenson,David W.
TI  - Innovators: Architects
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15661
PY  - 2010
Y2  - January 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15661
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15661.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David Galenson
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL  60637
Tel: 773/702-8258
Fax: 773/702-8490
E-Mail: galenson@uchicago.edu
AB  - Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Frank Gehry were experimental architects: all worked visually, and arrived at their designs by discovering forms as they sketched.  Their styles evolved gradually over long periods, and all three produced the buildings that are generally considered their greatest masterpieces after the age of 60.  In contrast, Maya Lin is a conceptual architect: her designs originate in ideas, and they arrive fully formed.  The work that dominates her career, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, was designed as an assignment for a course she took during her senior year of college.  The dominance of a single early work makes Lin’s career comparable to  those of a number of precocious conceptual innovators in other arts, including the painter Paul Sérusier, the sculptor Meret Oppenheim, the novelist J.D. Salinger, and the poet Allen Ginsberg.
ER  -