RAFAEL: I met with Maya Lin at her studio in Soho to discuss her preliminary designs for the new museum. Ms. Lin, youturned down some of your other projects to design MOCA and you cut your rate to do it. What drew you so strongly to this project?

MAYA: I think two things. One, I’ve realized that in this country, you haven’t really dealt with the history of chinese americans on a national level. And i think MOCA is now poised moving into this new building to be able to tell that history and i think having two young kids, having seen, actually I think Bill Moyers piece on becoming american, the chinese american experience. It really made me realize how much how important it is that americans in general as well as chinese americans really realize how long the legacy of chinese americans have been in this country; how they have literally have been in some respects, one could say the slaves of the west; building the railroads, really horrible racism that they went through. I think just people being aware that we have been here and really contributed and can be as american as anyone else, but perhaps because of the way we look, maybe we’re always going to be asked,”where did you come from?” Even though we could be 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation, but it was just so easy a decision to say yes when MOCA called me in to do this.

RAFAEL: Now the founders of MOCA had as one of its goals to break down the stereotypes of chinese people, chinese culture. Is breaking down stereotypes also one of the goals in the design for MOCA?

MAYA: Well I think conciously from the very beginning, obviously a lot of my work has been time’s deemed zen or very asian in feeling. I sometimes wonder because I’m coming out of certainness that scandinavian design shaker, design 50’s modernism. If I weren’t chinese, would they have attached those labels? Would they instead have said you’re minimalist. So I’m looking at everything from restaurants, to toher museums to things that have been called asian in design because I dont want to be come a stereotype in this. In fact, I’m acutely aware of falling into this trap and I really want to explore that as far as why is this asian looking? And maybe I really dont want to fall into the trap of making soething that looks asian style. This is a museum that will bridge chinatown and soho. Once again, old and new. We’re going to be stripping it bare to the absolute joints so that you begin to see the old building itself, the old structure which probably is 100 years old. On top of that will be exposing all the stone work in the basemnt as you come up in the court yard. So the blending is really about an inner layer that’s older, surrounded by a more modern skin which will probably announce to the city this is a museum, this is a new museum that will really take you through a history, a timeline.

RAFAEL: Now both your parents are immigrants from China. They came in 1949 to escape the Communist takeover.

MAYA: They met in the States, but my father was from Beijing, my mother from Shanghai. They came out at that wave of immigrants, Whereas there have been numberous waves throughout the eras; some coming from certain parts of china. Going more to the pacific coat, others coming to new york. And there’s a really deep history in the last 100 or so years of these waves of immigrations. And I think yes my parents were both from the kind of the situation when communism took over in China.

RAFAEL: And you were born in Ohio

MAYA: I was born in Ohio, born and raised. A lot of my friends would say that I’m probably the whitest person they’ve ever met.

RAFAEL: You said that you grew up, although it was pretty unusal for chinese american families, you grew up pretty oblivious to your chinese american culture. How come?

MAYA: I think my brother and I were the only chinese americans I rememeber there was one friend of mine who was half american, half chinese. and there really wasn’t a community. I think when there isn’t a comunity and you’re the only person, you look at every other child’s face and you think you look like that. You don’t realize youre different. And I think it was actually, it’s a college town, Ohio University. And I think in an academic world Where your color, your race, your sex was not as important as, i think, what was in your mind. And so I was really happily buffered from that. I think I have encountered, since that time, certain situations where it’s bound to happen at times. The most public, I think was in Washington, but I think even during the Vietnam Memorial and the fact that I didn’t even realize it would be an issue. It took me about 8 months being in Washington til I kind of asked the veterans, is this a problem? They had been trying to protect me from it, they haven’t told me about the letters that were coming in.

RAFAEL: And what did the letters say?

MAYA: Why would you let a gook design this. I mean I remember reporters saying, well don’t you think it’s ironic the war was an asian war and you’re of asian descent? And I just said point blank, well that’s irrevelent. It took me 9 months to realize I might see it that way, but that’s not how a lot of people saw.

RAFAEL: You also said that your work exists often exists in the boundary between east and west. How does that metaphor work?

MAYA: I think this metaphor is perfect for what I do in my work that being chinese american, you’re of both cultures. And I think this entire building will be on the edge or in between, or perhaps it’s going to step in certain areas more than to one world than the next, but this becomes just an incredible opportnunity from a architectural point of view to explore that borderline situation and I think it’s really sometimes you feel you’re in between. Other times, you feel you’re part of both and I think that’s something we’ll be exploring throughout.

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