Newport, Rhode Island
Queen Anne Square
Maya Lin’s The Meeting Room, a redo of Newport’s Queen Anne Square, incorporates the talents of two longtime Lin collaborators: calligrapher and stone carver Nicolas Benson and landscape designer Edwina von Gal. Together, the three have created a serene and inspiring public space that offers opportunities to interact on many levels with a unique environment. The Newport Restoration Foundation commissioned Lin to re-envision the square in honor of the late philanthropist Doris Duke, who preserved many of the city’s 18th-century buildings. Lin’s concept for The Meeting Room suggests a kind of archaeological dig that can also be related to her career. In terms of sculpting the land, she has changed a once flat, angled expanse into a gently rolling landscape… see the entire review in the print version of January/February’s Sculpture magazine.
