For Maya Lin, a Victory Lap Gives Way to Mourning
The Neilson Library at Smith College, which Lin redesigned, is interwoven with her own life story. But any triumph is muted by the sudden death of her husband, Daniel Wolf.
Maya Lin inside the Neilson Library at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. Known for blending architecture, art and landscape in her work, Lin offered a vision for the library that reimagines the complex as an intellectual commons. Credit.Tony Luong for The New York Times
By Brett Sokol
March 17, 2021
NORTHAMPTON, Mass. Renovating a historic building is rarely simple, whether it’s a Brooklyn brownstone or, in this case, the $120 million overhaul of Smith College’s century-old Neilson Library. As any architect can attest, a venerable building’s emotionally attached owners can be far more challenging to manage than the actual construction. But any reservations Maya Lin may have had after being hired in 2015 by Smith to redesign the 200,000-square-foot N