Vietnam Veterans Memorial

You're in Constitution Gardens, just off the Mall, and the ground in front of you opens into a long black cut. Walk to the path along its base and look at the polished granite. You'll see names, row on row, and behind them, your own reflection.

In 1981, a design competition for this memorial was won by Maya Lin, a Yale architecture student who was 21 years old. Her idea was not a statue or an arch. It was two black walls set into the earth, each about 250 feet long. One points at the Washington Monument behind you. The other points at the Lincoln Memorial ahead. As you walk, the wall rises from a few inches to more than 10 feet where the two meet, then sinks back down. You go below the level of the ground and come back up.