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The Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) is an international authority file. It is a joint project of several national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). The project was initiated by the German National Library and the American Library of Congress.

The aim is to link the national authority files (such as the German Name Authority File) to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together. A VIAF record: receives a standard data number; contains the primary, "see", and "see also" records from the original records; and refers to the original authority records. The data are made available online and are available for research and data exchange/sharing. Data set updating uses the Open Archives Initiative protocol.

Participating libraries[link]

Libraries added for testing purposes[link]

See also[link]

• Universal Authority File (GND)

Library and information science portal

External links[link]

• viaf.org
• Expanding the concept of universal bibliographic control

This Library of Congress article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Authority control is the practice of creating and maintaining index terms for bibliographic material in a catalog in library and information science. Authority control fulfills two important functions. First, it enables catalogers to disambiguate items with similar or identical headings. For example, two authors who happen to have published under the same name can be distinguished from each other by adding middle initials, birth and/or death (or flourished, if these are unknown) dates, or a descriptive epithet to the heading of one (or both) authors. Second, authority control is used by catalogers to collocate materials that logically belong together, although they present themselves differently. For example, authority records are used to establish uniform titles, which can collocate all versions of a given work together even when they are issued under different titles.

Although theoretically any piece of information on a given book is amenable to authority control, catalogers typically focus on authors and titles. Subject headings fulfill a function similar to authority records, although they are usually considered separately.

Authority records[link]

The most common way of enforcing authority control in a bibliographic catalog is to set up a separate index of authority records, which relates to and governs the headings used in the main catalog. This separate index is often referred to as an "authority file." It contains an indexable record of all decisions made by catalogers in a given library (or -- as is increasingly the case -- cataloguing consortium), which catalogers consult when making, or revising, decisions about headings.

It is to be remembered that the function of authority files is essentially organizational, rather than informational. That is to say, they (ideally) contain a sufficient amount of information to establish a given author or title as unique, while excluding information that, while perhaps interesting to a reader, does not contribute to this goal.

Although practices certainly vary internationally, in the English-speaking world, it is generally the case that a valid authority record must contain:

• A heading
• Any cross references
• Statement(s) of justification

Heading refers to the form of name (or title) that the cataloguer has chosen as the authorized form.

Cross references are other forms of the name (or title) that might appear in the catalog. There are two types of cross-references: see references, which reference forms of the name (or title) that have been deprecated in favor of the authorized form; and see also references, which point to other forms of the name (or title) that are authorized. See also references are most commonly used to point to earlier or later forms of a name (or title).

Statement(s) of justification: In addition to providing a heading and applicable references, a valid authority record should also contain a reference to whatever sources of information the cataloguer used to determine both the authorized and any deprecated forms of the name. This is usually done by citing the title and publication date of the source, the location of the name (or title) on that source, and the form in which it appears on that source.

An example authority record, for author Flann O'Brien, taken from the United States Library of Congress authorities files, is reproduced below. (The original record has been abbreviated somewhat for clarity):

O’Brien, Flann, 1911-1966

Na Gopaleen, Myles, 1911-1966
Knowall, George
Na gCopaleen, Myles, 1911-1966

His At Swim-Two-Birds ... 1939.
His The best of Myles, 1983: CIP t.p. (Myles na Gopaleen (Flann O’Brien))
His Myles away from Dublin, 1985: t.p. (Myles na Gopaleen (Flann O’Brien) selection from the 
column written for ... under the name of George Knowall)
Rhapsody in Stephen’s green, 1994: t.p. (Flann O’Brien (Myles na gCopaleen))

This example contains all the elements of a valid authority record: the first heading is the form of the name that the Library of Congress has chosen to be authoritative. In theory, every record in the catalog that represents a work by this author should have this form of the name as its author heading. What follows immediately below is a set of see references. These forms of the author's name will appear in the catalog, but only as transcriptions, not as headings. If a user queries the catalog under one of these variant forms of the author's name, she would receive the response: "See O’Brien, Flann, 1911-1966." (See also references, which point from one authorized heading to another authorized heading, are exceedingly rare for personal name authority records, although they often appear in name authority records for corporate bodies.) The final four entries in this record constitute the justification for this particular form of the name: it appeared in this form on the 1939 edition of the author's novel At Swim-Two-Birds, whereas the author's other noms de plume appeared on later publications.

Access control[link]

The act of choosing a single authorized heading to represent all forms of a name is often difficult, sometimes arbitrary and on occasion politically sensitive. An alternative is the idea of access control, where variant forms of a name are related without the endorsement of one particular form. See Linda Barnhart's Access Control Records: Prospects and Challenges from the 1996 OCLC conference 'Authority Control in the 21st Century'.

Authority control and cooperative cataloging[link]

Before the advent of digital OPACs and the Internet, the work of creating and maintaining a library's authority files was generally carried out by individual cataloging departments (if it was done at all). This meant that there could be a fair amount of disagreement among libraries over which form of a given name was considered authoritative; so long as a library's catalog was internally consistent, differences between catalogs did not matter greatly.

However, even before the Internet revolutionized the way libraries go about cataloging their materials, catalogers began moving toward the establishment of cooperative consortia, such as OCLC and RLIN in the United States, in which cataloging departments from libraries all over the world contributed their records to, and took their records from, a shared database. This development gave rise to the need for national standards for authority work.

In the United States, the primary organization for maintaining cataloging standards with respect to authority work operates under the aegis of the Library of Congress, and is known as the Name Authority Cooperative Program, or NACO^[1] Authority.

Standards[link]

• ISAAR (CPF) - International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families.^[2] Published by the International Council on Archives^[3]
• MARC standards for authority records in machine-readable format.^[4]
• Metadata Authority Description Schema (MADS), an XML schema for an authority element set that may be used to provide metadata about agents (people, organizations), events, and terms (topics, geographics, genres, etc.).
• Encoded Archival Context, an XML schema for authority records conforming to ISAAR(CPF)

See also[link]

• Universal Authority File (Gemeinsame Normdatei or GND), authority file by the German National Library
• Knowledge Organization Systems
• Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) for representation of thesauri, classification schemes, taxonomies, subject-heading systems, or any other type of structured controlled vocabulary.
• Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), an aggregation of authority files currently focused on personal and corporate names.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Library of Congress authorities records
• A description of authority control services as provided by Backstage Library Works
• A description of authority control services as provided by LTI
• A description of authorities processing services as provided by Marcive

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (March 2012)

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier (1933)
Born	(1887-10-06)October 6, 1887 La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
Died	August 27, 1965(1965-08-27) (aged 77) Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France
Nationality	Swiss / French (from 1930)
Work
Buildings	Villa Savoye, France Notre Dame du Haut, France Buildings in Chandigarh, India

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier (French pronunciation: [lə kɔʁbyzje]; October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965), was an architect, designer, urbanist,and writer, famous for being one of the pioneers of what is now called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930. His career spanned five decades, with his buildings constructed throughout Europe, India and America.

He was a pioneer in studies of modern high design and was dedicated to providing better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities.

Le Corbusier adopted his pseudonym in the 1920s, allegedly deriving it in part from the name of a distant ancestor, "Lecorbésier."

He was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal in 1961.

Life[link]

Early life and education, 1887–1913[link]

He was born as Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a small city in Neuchâtel canton in north-western Switzerland, in the Jura mountains, just 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) across the border from France. He attended a kindergarten that used Fröbelian methods.

Young Jeanneret was attracted to the visual arts and studied at the La-Chaux-de-Fonds Art School under Charles L'Eplattenier, who had studied in Budapest and Paris. His architecture teacher in the Art School was the architect René Chapallaz, who had a large influence on Le Corbusier's earliest houses.

In his early years he would frequently escape the somewhat provincial atmosphere of his hometown by traveling around Europe. About 1907, he traveled to Paris, where he found work in the office of Auguste Perret, the French pioneer of reinforced concrete. In 1908, He studied architecture in Vienna with Josef Hoffmann. Between October 1910 and March 1911, he worked near Berlin for the renowned architect Peter Behrens, where he might have met Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius. He became fluent in German. Both of these experiences would prove influential in his later career.

Later in 1911, he journeyed to the Balkans and visited Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, filling sketchbooks with renderings of what he saw, including many famous sketches of the Parthenon, whose forms he would later praise in his work Vers une architecture (1923) ("Towards an Architecture," but usually translated into English as "Towards a new Architecture").

Early career: the villas, 1914–1930[link]

Le Corbusier taught at his old school in La-Chaux-de-Fonds during World War I, not returning to Paris until the war was over. During these four years in Switzerland, he worked on theoretical architectural studies using modern techniques.^[1] Among these was his project for the Domino House (1914–1915). This model proposed an open floor plan consisting of concrete slabs supported by a minimal number of thin, reinforced concrete columns around the edges, with a stairway providing access to each level on one side of the floor plan.

This design became the foundation for most of his architecture for the next ten years. Soon he would begin his own architectural practice with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret (1896–1967), a partnership that would last until the 1950s, with an interruption in the WWII years, due to Le Corbusier's ambivalent position towards the Vichy regime.

In 1918, Le Corbusier met the Cubist painter Amédée Ozenfant, in whom he recognised a kindred spirit. Ozenfant encouraged him to paint, and the two began a period of collaboration. Rejecting Cubism as irrational and "romantic," the pair jointly published their manifesto, Après le cubisme and established a new artistic movement, Purism. Ozenfant and Le Corbusier established the Purist journal L'Esprit nouveau. He was good friends with the Cubist artist Fernand Léger.

Pseudonym adopted, 1920[link]

In the first issue of the journal, in 1920, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret adopted Le Corbusier, an altered form of his maternal grandfather's name, "Lecorbésier", as a pseudonym, reflecting his belief that anyone could reinvent themselves. Adopting a single name to identify oneself was in vogue by artists in many fields during that era, especially among those in Paris.

Between 1918 and 1922, Le Corbusier built nothing, concentrating his efforts on Purist theory and painting. In 1922, Le Corbusier and his cousin Jeanneret opened a studio in Paris at 35 rue de Sèvres.^[1]

His theoretical studies soon advanced into several different single-family house models. Among these was the Maison "Citrohan", a pun on the name of the French Citroën automaker, for the modern industrial methods and materials Le Corbusier advocated using for the house. Here, Le Corbusier proposed a three-floor structure, with a double-height living room, bedrooms on the second floor, and a kitchen on the third floor. The roof would be occupied by a sun terrace. On the exterior Le Corbusier installed a stairway to provide second-floor access from ground level. Here, as in other projects from this period, he also designed the façades to include large expanses of uninterrupted banks of windows. The house used a rectangular plan, with exterior walls that were not filled by windows, left as white, stuccoed spaces. Le Corbusier and Jeanneret left the interior aesthetically spare, with any movable furniture made of tubular metal frames. Light fixtures usually comprised single, bare bulbs. Interior walls also were left white. Between 1922 and 1927, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret designed many of these private houses for clients around Paris. In Boulogne-sur-Seine and the 16th arrondissement of Paris, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret designed and built the Villa Lipschitz, Maison Cook (see William Edwards Cook), Maison Planeix, and the Maison La Roche/Albert Jeanneret, which now houses the Fondation Le Corbusier.

Personal relationships[link]

While returning in 1929 from South America to Europe, Le Corbusier met entertainer and actress Josephine Baker on board the ocean liner Lutétia. Le Corbusier made several nude sketches of Baker. Soon after his return to France, Le Corbusier married Yvonne Gallis, a dressmaker and fashion model. She died in 1957. Le Corbusier also had a long extramarital affair with Swedish-American heiress Marguerite Tjader Harris.

Le Corbusier took French citizenship in 1930.^[1]

Portrait on Swiss ten francs banknote

Forays into urbanism[link]

For a number of years French officials had been unsuccessful in dealing with the squalor of the growing Parisian slums, and Le Corbusier sought efficient ways to house large numbers of people in response to the urban housing crisis. He believed that his new, modern architectural forms would provide a new organizational solution that would raise the quality of life for the lower classes. His Immeubles Villas (1922) was such a project that called for large blocks of cell-like individual apartments stacked one on top of the other, with plans that included a living room, bedrooms and kitchen, as well as a garden terrace.

Not merely content with designs for a few housing blocks, soon Le Corbusier moved into studies for entire cities. In 1922, he presented his scheme for a "Contemporary City" for three million inhabitants (Ville Contemporaine). The centerpiece of this plan was the group of sixty-story, cruciform skyscrapers; steel-framed office buildings encased in huge curtain walls of glass. These skyscrapers were set within large, rectangular park-like green spaces. At the center was a huge transportation hub, that on different levels included depots for buses and trains, as well as highway intersections, and at the top, an airport. He had the fanciful notion that commercial airliners would land between the huge skyscrapers. Le Corbusier segregated pedestrian circulation paths from the roadways and glorified the use of the automobile as a means of transportation. As one moved out from the central skyscrapers, smaller low-story, zigzag apartment blocks (set far back from the street amid green space), housed the inhabitants. Le Corbusier hoped that politically-minded industrialists in France would lead the way with their efficient Taylorist and Fordist strategies adopted from American industrial models to reorganize society. As Norma Evenson has put it, "the proposed city appeared to some an audacious and compelling vision of a brave new world, and to others a frigid megalomaniacally scaled negation of the familiar urban ambient."^[2]

In this new industrial spirit, Le Corbusier contributed to a new journal called L'Esprit Nouveau that advocated the use of modern industrial techniques and strategies to transform society into a more efficient environment with a higher standard of living on all socioeconomic levels. He forcefully argued that this transformation was necessary to avoid the spectre of revolution that would otherwise shake society. His dictum, "Architecture or Revolution," developed in his articles in this journal, became his rallying cry for the book Vers une architecture (Toward an Architecture, previously mistranslated into English as Towards a New Architecture), which comprised selected articles he contributed to L'Esprit Nouveau between 1920 and 1923. In this book, Le Corbusier followed the influence of Walter Gropius and reprinted several photographs of North American factories and grain elevators.^[3]

Theoretical urban schemes continued to occupy Le Corbusier. He exhibited his "Plan Voisin," sponsored by another famous automobile manufacturer, in 1925. In it, he proposed to bulldoze most of central Paris north of the Seine, and replace it with his sixty-story cruciform towers from the Contemporary City, placed in an orthogonal street grid and park-like green space. His scheme was met with criticism and scorn from French politicians and industrialists, although they were favorable to the ideas of Taylorism and Fordism underlying Le Corbusier designs. Nonetheless, it did provoke discussion concerning how to deal with the cramped, dirty conditions that enveloped much of the city.

In the 1930s, Le Corbusier expanded and reformulated his ideas on urbanism, eventually publishing them in La Ville radieuse (The Radiant City) of 1935. Perhaps the most significant difference between the Contemporary City and the Radiant City is that the latter abandons the class-based stratification of the former; housing is now assigned according to family size, not economic position.^[4] Some have read dark overtones into The Radiant City: from the "astonishingly beautiful assemblage of buildings" that was Stockholm, for example, Le Corbusier saw only “frightening chaos and saddening monotony.”^[5] He dreamed of "cleaning and purging" the city, bringing "a calm and powerful architecture"—referring to steel, plate glass, and reinforced concrete. Though Le Corbusier's designs for Stockholm did not succeed, later architects took his ideas and partly "destroyed" the city with them.^[5]

High Court in Chandigarh, India

La Ville radieuse also marks Le Corbusier's increasing dissatisfaction with capitalism and his turn to the right-wing syndicalism of Hubert Lagardelle. During the Vichy regime, Le Corbusier received a position on a planning committee and made designs for Algiers and other cities. The central government ultimately rejected his plans, and after 1942 Le Corbusier withdrew from political activity.^[6]

After World War II, Le Corbusier attempted to realize his urban planning schemes on a small scale by constructing a series of "unités" (the housing block unit of the Radiant City) around France. The most famous of these was the Unité d'Habitation of Marseilles (1946–1952). In the 1950s, a unique opportunity to translate the Radiant City on a grand scale presented itself in the construction of the Union Territory Chandigarh, the new capital for the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana and the first planned city in India. Le Corbusier designed many administration buildings including a courthouse, parliament building and a university. He also designed the general layout of the city dividing it into sectors. Le Corbusier was brought on to develop the plan of Albert Mayer.

The cabin where he spent his last years in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin

Death[link]

Against his doctor's orders, on August 27, 1965, Le Corbusier went for a swim in the Mediterranean Sea at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France. His body was found by bathers and he was pronounced dead at 11 a.m. It was assumed that he may have suffered a heart attack. His death rites took place at the courtyard of the Louvre Palace on September 1, 1965 under the direction of writer and thinker André Malraux, who was at the time France's Minister of Culture. He was buried alongside his wife in the grave he had designated at Roquebrune.

Le Corbusier's death had a strong impact on the cultural and political world. Homages were paid worldwide and even some of Le Corbusier's worst artistic enemies, such as the painter Salvador Dalí, recognised his importance (Dalí sent a floral tribute). The President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson said: "His influence was universal and his works are invested with a permanent quality possessed by those of very few artists in our history". The Soviet Union added, "Modern architecture has lost its greatest master". Japanese TV channels decided to broadcast, simultaneously to the ceremony, his Museum in Tokyo, in what was at the time a unique media homage.

Visitors may find his grave site in the cemetery above Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in between Menton and Monaco in southern France.

The Fondation Le Corbusier (or FLC) functions as his official Estate.^[7] The U.S. copyright representative for the Fondation Le Corbusier is the Artists Rights Society.^[8]

Ideas[link]

Five points of architecture[link]

It was Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye (1929–1931) that most succinctly summed up his five points of architecture that he had elucidated in the journal L'Esprit Nouveau and his book Vers une architecture, which he had been developing throughout the 1920s. First, Le Corbusier lifted the bulk of the structure off the ground, supporting it by pilotis – reinforced concrete stilts. These pilotis, in providing the structural support for the house, allowed him to elucidate his next two points: a free façade, meaning non-supporting walls that could be designed as the architect wished, and an open floor plan, meaning that the floor space was free to be configured into rooms without concern for supporting walls. The second floor of the Villa Savoye includes long strips of ribbon windows that allow unencumbered views of the large surrounding yard, and which constitute the fourth point of his system. The fifth point was the roof garden to compensate for the green area consumed by the building and replacing it on the roof. A ramp rising from ground level to the third floor roof terrace allows for an architectural promenade through the structure. The white tubular railing recalls the industrial "ocean-liner" aesthetic that Le Corbusier much admired. As if to put an exclamation mark after Le Corbusier's homage to modern industry, the driveway around the ground floor, with its semicircular path, measures the exact turning radius of a 1927 Citroën automobile.

The Modulor[link]

Le Corbusier explicitly used the golden ratio in his Modulor system for the scale of architectural proportion. He saw this system as a continuation of the long tradition of Vitruvius, Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man", the work of Leon Battista Alberti, and others who used the proportions of the human body to improve the appearance and function of architecture. In addition to the golden ratio, Le Corbusier based the system on human measurements, Fibonacci numbers, and the double unit.

He took Leonardo's suggestion of the golden ratio in human proportions to an extreme: he sectioned his model human body's height at the navel with the two sections in golden ratio, then subdivided those sections in golden ratio at the knees and throat; he used these golden ratio proportions in the Modulor system.

Le Corbusier's 1927 Villa Stein in Garches exemplified the Modulor system's application. The villa's rectangular ground plan, elevation, and inner structure closely approximate golden rectangles.^[9]

Le Corbusier placed systems of harmony and proportion at the centre of his design philosophy, and his faith in the mathematical order of the universe was closely bound to the golden section and the Fibonacci series, which he described as "rhythms apparent to the eye and clear in their relations with one another. And these rhythms are at the very root of human activities. They resound in Man by an organic inevitability, the same fine inevitability which causes the tracing out of the Golden Section by children, old men, savages, and the learned."^[10]

The Open Hand[link]

The Open Hand Monument in Chandigarh, India

The Open Hand (La Main Ouverte) is a recurring motif in Le Corbusier's architecture, a sign for him of "peace and reconciliation. It is open to give and open to receive." The largest of the many Open Hand sculptures that Le Corbusier created is a 28 meter high version in Chandigarh, India.

Furniture[link]

Corbusier said: "Chairs are architecture, sofas are bourgeois."

Le Corbusier began experimenting with furniture design in 1928 after inviting the architect, Charlotte Perriand, to join his studio. His cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, also collaborated on many of the designs. Before the arrival of Perriand, Le Corbusier relied on ready-made furniture to furnish his projects, such as the simple pieces manufactured by Thonet, the company that manufactured his designs in the 1930s.

In 1928, Le Corbusier and Perriand began to put the expectations for furniture Le Corbusier outlined in his 1925 book L'Art Décoratif d'aujourd'hui into practice. In the book he defined three different furniture types: type-needs, type-furniture, and human-limb objects. He defined human-limb objects as: "Extensions of our limbs and adapted to human functions that are type-needs and type-functions, therefore type-objects and type-furniture. The human-limb object is a docile servant. A good servant is discreet and self-effacing in order to leave his master free. Certainly, works of art are tools, beautiful tools. And long live the good taste manifested by choice, subtlety, proportion, and harmony".

The first results of the collaboration were three chrome-plated tubular steel chairs designed for two of his projects, The Maison la Roche in Paris and a pavilion for Barbara and Henry Church. The line of furniture was expanded for Le Corbusier's 1929 Salon d'Automne installation, Equipment for the Home.

The most famous of these chairs are the now-iconic LC-1, LC-2, LC-3, and LC-4, originally titled "Basculant" (LC-1), "Fauteuil grand confort, petit modèle" (LC-2, "great comfort sofa, small model"), "Fauteil grand confort, grand modèle" (LC-3, "great comfort sofa, large model"), and "Chaise longue" (LC-4, "Long chair", English: "chaise lounge").^[11] The LC-2 and LC-3 are more colloquially referred to as the petit confort and grand confort (abbreviation of full title, and due to respective sizes). The LC-2 (and similar LC-3) have been featured in a variety of media, notably the Maxell "blown away" advertisement.^[12]

In the year 1964, while Le Corbusier was still alive, Cassina S.p.A. of Milan acquired the exclusive worldwide rights to manufacture his furniture designs. Today many copies exist, but Cassina is still the only manufacturer authorized by the Fondation Le Corbusier; see US page.

Politics[link]

In the 1930s, Le Corbusier associated with Georges Valois and Hubert Lagardelle and briefly edited the syndicalist journal Prélude. In 1934, he lectured in Rome on architecture, by invitation of Benito Mussolini. He sought out a position in urban planning in the Vichy regime and received an appointment on a committee studying urbanism. He drew up plans for the redesign of Algiers in which he criticized the perceived differences in living standards between Europeans and Africans in the city, describing a situation in which "the civilised live like rats in holes" yet "the barbarians live in solitude, in well-being."^[13] These and plans for the redesign of other cities were ultimately ignored. After this defeat, Le Corbusier largely eschewed politics.

Although the politics of Lagardelle and Valois included elements of fascism, anti-semitism, and ultra-nationalism, Le Corbusier's own affiliation with these movements remains uncertain. In La Ville radieuse, he conceives an essentially apolitical society, in which the bureaucracy of economic administration effectively replaces the state.^[14]

Le Corbusier was heavily indebted to the thought of the 19th-century French utopians Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier. There is a noteworthy resemblance between the concept of the unité and Fourier's phalanstery.^[15] From Fourier, Le Corbusier adopted at least in part his notion of administrative, rather than political, government.

Criticisms[link]

Since his death, Le Corbusier's contribution has been hotly contested, as the architecture values and its accompanying aspects within modern architecture vary, both between different schools of thought and among practicing architects.^[16] At the level of building, his later works expressed a complex understanding of modernity's impact, yet his urban designs have drawn scorn from critics.

Technological historian and architecture critic Lewis Mumford wrote in Yesterday's City of Tomorrow that the extravagant heights of Le Corbusier's skyscrapers had no reason for existence apart from the fact that they had become technological possibilities. The open spaces in his central areas had no reason for existence either, Mumford wrote, since on the scale he imagined there was no motive during the business day for pedestrian circulation in the office quarter. By "mating utilitarian and financial image of the skyscraper city to the romantic image of the organic environment, Le Corbusier had, in fact, produced a sterile hybrid."

The public housing projects influenced by his ideas are seen by some as having had the effect of isolating poor communities in monolithic high-rises and breaking the social ties integral to a community's development. One of his most influential detractors has been Jane Jacobs, who delivered a scathing critique of Le Corbusier's urban design theories in her seminal work The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Influence[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2008)

Le Corbusier was at his most influential in the sphere of urban planning, and was a founding member of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM).

Gustavo Capanema Palace, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).

One of the first to realize how the automobile would change human agglomerations, Le Corbusier described the city of the future as consisting of large apartment buildings isolated in a park-like setting on pilotis. Le Corbusier's theories were adopted by the builders of public housing in Western Europe and the United States. For the design of the buildings themselves, Le Corbusier criticized any effort at ornamentation. The large spartan structures in cities, but not 'of' cities, have been widely criticized for being boring and unfriendly to pedestrians.

Throughout the years, many architects worked for Le Corbusier in his studio, and a number of them became notable in their own right, including painter-architect Nadir Afonso, who absorbed Le Corbusier's ideas into his own aesthetics theory. Lúcio Costa's city plan of Brasília and the industrial city of Zlín planned by František Lydie Gahura in the Czech Republic are notable plans based on his ideas, while the architect himself produced the plan for Chandigarh in India. Le Corbusier's thinking also had profound effects on the philosophy of city planning and architecture in the Soviet Union, particularly in the Constructivist era.

Le Corbusier was heavily influenced by problems he saw in industrial cities at the turn of the 19th to 20th century. He thought that industrial housing techniques led to crowding, dirtiness, and a lack of a moral landscape. He was a leader of the modernist movement to create better living conditions and a better society through housing concepts. Ebenezer Howard's Garden Cities of Tomorrow heavily influenced Le Corbusier and his contemporaries.

Le Corbusier also harmonized and lent credence to the idea of space as a set of destinations which mankind moved between, more or less continuously. He was therefore able to give credence and credibility to the automobile (as a transporter); and most importantly to freeways in urban spaces. His philosophies were useful to urban real estate development interests in the American Post World War II period because they justified and lent architectural and intellectual support to the desire to destroy traditional urban space for high density high profit urban concentration, both commercial and residential. Le Corbusier’s ideas also sanctioned further destruction of traditional urban spaces to build freeways that connected this new urbanism to low density, low cost (and highly profitable), suburban and rural locales which were free to be developed as middle class single-family (dormitory) housing.

Notably missing from this scheme of movement were connectivity between isolated urban villages created for lower-middle and working classes and other destination points in Le Corbusier's plan: suburban and rural areas, and urban commercial centers. This was because as designed, the freeways traveled over, at, or beneath grade levels of the living spaces of the urban poor (one modern example: the Cabrini–Green housing project in Chicago). Such projects and their areas, having no freeway exit ramps, cut-off by freeway rights-of-way, became isolated from jobs and services concentrated at Le Corbusier’s nodal transportation end points. As jobs increasingly moved to the suburban end points of the freeways, urban village dwellers found themselves without convenient freeway access points in their communities and without public mass transit connectivity that could economically reach suburban job centers.

Very late in the Post-War period, suburban job centers found this to be such a critical problem (labor shortages) that they, on their own, began sponsoring urban-to-suburban shuttle bus services between urban villages and suburban job centers, to fill working class and lower-middle class jobs which had gone wanting, and which did not normally pay the wages that car ownership required.

Le Corbusier deliberately created a myth about himself and was revered in his lifetime, and after death, by a generation of followers who believed Le Corbusier was a prophet who could do no wrong. But in the 1950s the first doubts began to appear, notably in some essays by his greatest admirers such as James Stirling and Colin Rowe, who denounced as catastrophic his ideas on the city. Later critics revealed his technical incompetence as an architect. In his book Armée du Salut, Brian Brace Taylor went into great detail about Le Corbusier's Machiavellian activities to create this commission for himself, his many ill-judged design decisions about building technologies, and the sometimes absurd solutions he then proposed.

Fondation Le Corbusier[link]

The Fondation Le Corbusier is a private foundation and archive honoring the work of architect Le Corbusier (1887–1965). It operates Maison La Roche, a museum located in the 16th arrondissement at 8-10, square du Dr Blanche, Paris, France, which is open daily except Sunday. As of June 2008, the Maison La Roche is temporarily closed for renovation.

The Fondation Le Corbusier was established in 1968. It now owns Maison La Roche and Maison Jeanneret (which form the foundation's headquarters), as well as the apartment occupied by Le Corbusier from 1933-1965 at rue Nungesser et Coli in Paris 16e, and the "Small House" he built for his parents in Corseaux on the shores of Lac Leman (1924).

Maison La Roche and Maison Jeanneret (1923–24), also known as the La Roche-Jeanneret house, is a pair of semi-detached houses that was Corbusier's third commission in Paris. They are laid out at right angles to each other, with iron, concrete, and blank, white facades setting off a curved two-story gallery space. Maison La Roche is now a museum containing about 8,000 original drawings, studies and plans by Le Corbusier (in collaboration with Pierre Jeanneret from 1922–1940), as well as about 450 of his paintings, about 30 enamels, about 200 other works on paper, and a sizable collection of written and photographic archives. It describes itself as the world's largest collection of Le Corbusier drawings, studies, and plans.^[17][18]

Major buildings and projects[link]

Ronchamp Chapel

National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, Japan

Centre Le Corbusier (Heidi Weber Museum) in Zurich-Seefeld (Zürichhorn)

Palace of Justice, Chandigarh

Assembly building, Chandigarh, India

Secretariat building, Chandigarh, India

• 1905: Villa Fallet, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
• 1908: Stotzer House, 6, Chemin de Pouillerel, la Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.
• 1912: Villa Jeanneret-Perret, La Chaux-de-Fonds
• 1916: Villa Schwob, La Chaux-de-Fonds
• 1922: Villa Besnus (Ker-Ka-Ré), Vaucresson, Paris, France
• 1922: Ozenfant House and Studio, Vaucresson, Paris. ( much altered.)
• 1923: Villa La Roche/Villa Jeanneret, Paris
• 1924: Pavillon de L'Esprit Nouveau, Paris (destroyed)
• 1924: Quartiers Modernes Frugès, Pessac, France
• 1925: Villa Jeanneret, Paris
• 1926: Villa Cook, Boulogne-sur-Seine, France
• 1926: Villa Ternisien, 5, Allee des Pins, Boulogne-sur-Seine, Paris. ( Block of apartments built over the house.)
• 1927: Villa Stein, Garches, Paris.
• 1927: Pleinex House, 24, Bis Boulevard Massena, Paris 13e.
• 1927: Villas at Weissenhof Estate, Stuttgart, Germany
• 1928: Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, France View on the map
• 1929: Cité du Refuge, Armée du Salut, Paris, France
• 1930: Pavillon Suisse, Cité Universitaire, Paris
• 1930: Maison Errazuriz, Chile
• 1930: Las Nubes, house of Uruguayan novelist Enrique Amorim (Salto, Uruguay)
• 1931: Palace of the Soviets, Moscow, USSR (project)
• 1931: Immeuble Clarté (fr), Geneva, Switzerland View on the map
• 1933: Tsentrosoyuz, Moscow, USSR
• 1936: Palace of Ministry of National Education and Public Health, Rio de Janeiro (as a consultant to Lucio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer and others)
• 1938: The "Cartesian" sky-scraper (project)
• 1945: Usine Claude et Duval, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, France
• 1947–1952: Unité d'Habitation, Marseille, France View on the map
• 1948: Curutchet House, La Plata, Argentina
• 1949–1952: United Nations headquarters, New York City (Consultant)
• 1950–1954: Chapelle Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, France View on the map
• 1951: Cabanon de vacances, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin
• 1951: Maisons Jaoul, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
• 1951: Mill Owners' Association Building, villa Sarabhai and villa Schodan, Ahmedabad, India
• 1952: Unité d'Habitation of Nantes-Rezé, Nantes, France View on the map
• 1952–1959: Buildings in Chandigarh, India
  • 1952: Palace of Justice (Chandigarh)
  • 1952: Museum and Gallery of Art (Chandigarh)
  • 1953: Secretariat Building (Chandigarh)
  • 1953: Governor's Palace (Chandigarh)
  • 1955: Palace of Assembly (Chandigarh)
  • 1956: Shodan House
  • 1959: Government College of Art (GCA) and the Chandigarh College of Architecture(CCA) (Chandigarh)
• 1956: Museum at Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, India
• 1956: Saddam Hussein Gymnasium, Baghdad, Iraq
• 1957: Unité d'Habitation of Briey en Forêt, France
• 1957: National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
• 1957: Maison du Brésil, Cité Universitaire, Paris
• 1957–1960: Sainte Marie de La Tourette, near Lyon, France (with Iannis Xenakis)
• 1957: Unité d'Habitation of Berlin-Charlottenburg, Flatowallee 16, Berlin View on the map
• 1957: Unité d'Habitation of Meaux, France
• 1958: Philips Pavilion, Brussels, Belgium (with Iannis Xenakis) (destroyed) at the 1958 World Expositon
• 1961: Center for Electronic Calculus, Olivetti, Milan, Italy
• 1961: Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
• 1963: House of Man, Zurich, Switzerland
• 1964–1969: Firminy-Vert
  • 1964: Unité d'Habitation of Firminy, France
  • 1966: Stadium Firminy-Vert
  • 1965: Maison de la culture de Firminy-Vert
  • 1969: Church of Saint-Pierre, Firminy, France (built posthumously and completed under José Oubrerie's guidance in 2006)
• 1967: Heidi Weber Museum (Centre Le Corbusier), Zurich, Switzerland

Major written works[link]

• 1918: Après le cubisme (After Cubism), with Amédée Ozenfant
• 1923: Vers une architecture (Towards an Architecture) (frequently mistranslated as "Towards a New Architecture")
• 1925: Urbanisme (Urbanism)
• 1925: La Peinture moderne (Modern Painting), with Amédée Ozenfant
• 1925: L'Art décoratif d'aujourd'hui (The Decorative Arts of Today)
• 1931: Premier clavier de couleurs (First Color Keyboard)
• 1935: Aircraft
• 1935: La Ville radieuse (The Radiant City)
• 1942: Charte d'Athènes (Athens Charter)
• 1943: Entretien avec les étudiants des écoles d'architecture (A Conversation with Architecture Students)
• 1945: Les Trios éstablishments Humains (The Three Human Establishments)
• 1948: Le Modulor (The Modulor)
• 1953: Le Poeme de l'Angle Droit (The Poem of the Right Angle)
• 1955: Le Modulor 2 (The Modulor 2)
• 1959: Deuxième clavier de couleurs (Second Colour Keyboard)
• 1966: Le Voyage d'Orient (The Voyage to the East)

Quotations[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Le Corbusier

• "You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces: that is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say: 'This is beautiful.' That is Architecture. Art enters in..." (Vers une architecture, 1923)
• "Architecture is the masterly, correct, and magnificent play of masses brought together in light."
• "Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep."
• "The house is a machine for living in." (Vers une architecture, 1923)
• "It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution." (Vers une architecture, 1923)
• "Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and the city." (Vers une architecture, 1923)
• "The 'Styles' are a lie." (Vers une architecture, 1923)
• "Architecture or revolution. Revolution can be avoided." (Vers une architecture, 1923)

Memorials[link]

Le Corbusier's portrait was featured on the 10 Swiss francs banknote, pictured with his distinctive eyeglasses.

The following place-names carry his name:

• Place Le Corbusier, Paris, near the site of his atelier on the Rue de Sèvres.
• Le Corbusier Boulevard, Laval, Quebec, Canada.
• Place Le Corbusier in his hometown of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.
• Le Corbusier Street in the partido of Malvinas Argentinas, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.
• Le Corbusier Street in Le Village Parisien of Brossard, Quebec, Canada.
• Le Corbusier Promenade, a promenade along the water at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.
• Le Corbusier Museum, Sector- 8 Chandigarh, India.

See also[link]

Design portal

• Category:Le Corbusier buildings – articles
• Modernism

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Curtis, William J.R. "Le Corbusier. Ideas and Forms", Phaidon, 1994, ISBN 978-0-7148-2790-2
• Jencks, Charles. "Le Corbusier and the Continual Revolution in Architecture", The Monacelli Press, 2000, ISBN 978-1-58093-077-2
• Nicholas Fox Weber, Le Corbusier: A Life, Alfred A. Knopf, 2008, ISBN 0-375-41043-0
• Marco Venturi, Le Corbusier Algiers Plans, research available on planum.net
• Sampò, Luca, Le Maisons Jaoul di Le Corbusier. La petite maison e la città contemporanea, FrancoAngeli, Milano 2010.
• Behrens, Roy R. (2005). COOK BOOK: Gertrude Stein, William Cook and Le Corbusier. Dysart, Iowa: Bobolink Books. ISBN 0-9713244-1-7.
• Naïma Jornod and Jean-Pierre Jornod, Le Corbusier (Charles Edouard Jeanneret), catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre peint, Skira, 2005, ISBN 88-7624-203-1
• Eliel, Carol S. (2002). L'Esprit Nouveau: Purism in Paris, 1918 - 1925. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-6727-8
• Frampton, Kenneth. (2001). Le Corbusier. London, Thames and Hudson.
• H. Allen Brooks: Le Corbusier's Formative Years: Charles-Edouard Jeanneret at La Chaux-de-Fonds, Paperback Edition, University of Chicago Press, 1999, ISBN 0-226-07582-6
• Von Moos, Stanislaus. (2009). Le Corbusier: Elements of A Synthesis. Rotterdam, 010 Publishers.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Le Corbusier

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Le Corbusier

• Fondation Le Corbusier - Official site
• Le Corbusier - Free DWG
• Le Corbusier and Villa Cook
• Reflections on Brutalist Architecture in East London
• Podcast: Kenneth Frampton on Le Corbusier
• Images of the Ministry of National Education and Public Health, Rio de Janeiro
• Le Corbusier's projects in a map
• The Shape Of Things That Came: Tim Benton's Analysis Of Le Corbusier's Audacious Designs
• Le Corbusier in Artfacts.Net
• Corbusier's Working Lifestyle: 'Working with Corbusier'
• Video: Sector 1 Chandigarh, India
• Artists Rights Society, Le Corbusier's U.S. Copyright Representatives
• Model for the Villa Chimanbhai
• Proportional Systems in the architecture of Le Corbusier

lez:Ле Корбюзье

Heather Wilson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Mexico's 1st district
In office June 25, 1998 – January 3, 2009
Preceded by	Steven Schiff
Succeeded by	Martin Heinrich
Personal details
Born	Heather Ann Wilson (1960-12-30) December 30, 1960 (age 51) Keene, New Hampshire
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Jay Hone
Residence	Albuquerque, New Mexico
Alma mater	United States Air Force Academy, The University of Oxford
Occupation	foreign policy strategist, business consultant
Religion	Methodist
Military service
Service/branch	United States Air Force
Years of service	1978–1989
Rank	Captain

Heather Ann Wilson^[1] (born December 30, 1960) is a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives representing New Mexico's 1st congressional district from 1998 to 2009. She is the first female military veteran elected to a full term in Congress.^[2]

While in Congress, Wilson focused on national security issues, serving on the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the United States House Committee on Armed Services.^[3] She also focused on health care, energy, manufacturing and trade, and telecommunication, serving on the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce.^[3]

She opted not to run for re-election to the House in 2008 and sought the U.S. Senate seat of retiring Senator Pete Domenici but finished second in the Republican primary to Congressman Steve Pearce, who then lost the general election to Democrat Tom Udall. On March 7, 2011, she announced another run for Senate in 2012 to replace retiring Senator Jeff Bingaman.

Early life, education, and Air Force service[link]

Wilson was born in Keene, New Hampshire, the daughter of Martha Lou, nurse, and George Douglas "Doug" Wilson, a commercial pilot and member of the Experimental Aircraft Association. Wilson grew up around aviation and hoped to become a pilot like her father and grandfather before her.^[2] Her paternal grandparents were born in Scotland.^[1] Her grandfather, George G. "Scotty" Wilson, flew for the Royal Air Force (RAF) in World War I and emigrated to America in 1922 where he was a barnstormer and airport operator in the 1920s and 1930s. He served as a courier pilot during World War II and started the New Hampshire Civil Air Patrol where he was a Wing Commander. Her father started flying at age 13 and enlisted in the United States Air Force after high school.

The United States Air Force Academy began admitting women^[4] during her junior year at Keene High School (Keene, New Hampshire), and Wilson applied and was appointed to the Academy. At the Academy, she was the first woman to command basic training and the first woman Vice Wing Commander.^[5] She graduated in 1982 as a Distinguished Graduate (magna cum laude equivalent).^[6] Although she had planned to go to flight school, Wilson earned a Rhodes Scholarship to study at The University of Oxford during the sixth year that women were permitted to apply and continued her education at Jesus College, [[The University of Oxford, earning a Master of Philosophy and D.Phil. in International Relations by 1985.^[6]

In 1990, Oxford University Press published her book, International Law and the Use of Force by National Liberation Movements,^[7] which won the 1988 Paul Reuter Prize of the International Committee of the Red Cross.^[8] The Paul Reuter Prize is awarded for a major work in the sphere of international humanitarian law. Wilson won the second Reuter prize ever awarded.^[9]

An Air Force officer for seven years, Wilson was a negotiator and political adviser to the U.S. Air Force in England, and a defense planning officer for NATO in Belgium, where her work included arms control negotiations.

Pre-congressional career[link]

National Security Council[link]

Wilson served in the United States Air Force until 1989 when she was chosen to serve as director for European Defense Policy and Arms Control on the National Security Council staff, "the President's principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials. Since its inception under President Truman, the Council's function has been to advise and assist the President on national security and foreign policies. The Council also serves as the President's principal arm for coordinating these policies among various government agencies."^[10] She worked for Republican President George H. W. Bush.

Keystone International[link]

After leaving government in 1991, Wilson founded Keystone International, Inc. in Albuquerque, New Mexico to promote business development in the United States and Russia. The company specialized in working with senior executives in large American defense and scientific corporations with business development and program planning work in the United States and Russia.

Governor Johnson administration[link]

In 1995, Governor Gary Johnson appointed Wilson to be Cabinet Secretary for Children Youth & Families Department, New Mexico where she led efforts to: reform child welfare laws; modernize the juvenile justice system; and improve early childhood education. This position led her to take an intense interest in Medicare and Medicaid and the ways in which the system can be improved to ensure the health of the American people and the American healthcare industry. Under her leadership, the department opened a juvenile work camp and a secure facility for young, violent offenders.^[5] It eliminated the wait for state-subsidized child care, revamped the foster care program and made adoptions faster.^[5] She also was an architect and the chief lobbyist for the governor's education agenda: vouchers, more charter schools, annual testing, and more budget authority for local school boards.^[5]

U.S. House of Representatives[link]

Elections[link]

1998 Special election

Five-term Republican Congressman Steven Schiff declared he would not run for re-election in the fall of 1997 because of his battle with Squamous-cell carcinoma. Wilson resigned her cabinet post to enter the Republican primary. She won the support of Schiff and U.S. Senator Pete Domenici. Domenici called Wilson "the most brilliantly qualified House candidate anywhere in the country."^[2] After Congressman Schiff's death in March, a special election on June 23 was announced. Wilson won the Republican primary for the special election with 62.48 percent of the vote,^[11] "propelling her to a sizable win in the June 2 primary for the fall election against conservative state senator William F. Davis."^[2]

Three weeks after winning the special primary, Wilson won the special election with 44.5 percent of the vote in a three-way race against millionaire Democratic state senator Phil Maloof and Green Party candidate Robert L. Anderson.^[12] She was sworn into office on June 25, 1998, making her the first woman since Georgia Lusk in 1946, and the first Republican woman ever, to represent New Mexico.

The special election set a record for the infusion of party money.^[13] For the June 23 special election, Maloof spent $3.1 million, approximately $1.5 million of which came from the Maloof family fortune and $1 million from committees. Wilson received $1 million from various GOP committees and raised an additional $1.5 million herself.

During the campaign, Phil Maloof aired an attack add accusing Wilson of an abuse of power by improperly handling her family's foster care file while she served as Secretary of the State of New Mexico's Department of Children, Youth and Families. Wilson had her family's foster parent records relocated from the Department's central location. When a local news station reported that she had the file removed, Wilson stated that she didn't remove the file. It remained in the custody of the Department, available for any official use but unavailable to her other than through the process all foster parents must use to get access to their records. Wilson produced a sworn affidavit from the Department that the file remained intact and unavailable to her for the duration of her time as Cabinet Secretary.^[14] After completing the investigation, Former District Attorney Bob Schwartz confirmed that the file was intact, accessible to the Department, and had not been tampered with.^[15]

1998 General Election

Less than five months later in the general election, Wilson faced Phil Maloof again. This time, she won a full term, defeating Phil Maloof 48.4 percent to 41.2 percent.^[16] Maloof far outspent Wilson again, spending an additional $5 million to Wilson’s $1.1 million, making it the most expensive House race in New Mexico’s history.^[2]

2000

Wilson was considered vulnerable by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the 2000 election. Although the 1st had been in Republican hands ever since its creation in 1969, it has become increasingly friendly to Democrats at the national level; it has supported a Democrat in every presidential election since 1992.

Nonetheless, Wilson managed to defeat her Democratic opponent, former U.S. Attorney John J. Kelly, by seven points. Democrats felt the presence of a Green candidate siphoned off votes that would have otherwise gone to Kelly.

2002

Wilson had a somewhat easier time in 2002, defeating State Senate President Pro Tem Richard Romero by 10 points despite Bill Richardson's landslide victory in the race for governor.

2004

In 2004, Wilson faced Romero again. Outside spending on the election was the 15th highest of all House races that year, totaling $2,505,949.^[17] The National Republican Congressional Committee spent $1,085,956 in the race. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $1,284,092.^[18]

Wilson and 66 other candidates received $10,000 donations from then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC) political action committee. ARMPAC filed termination papers with the Federal Election Commission on April 24, 2007.^[19] Wilson returned the $10,000 donation from ARMPAC.^[20]

During Wilson's reelection campaign in 2004, Romero ran advertisements that made the suggestion that her votes in Congress aided Osama bin Laden because she had voted against a bill to require the screening of cargo holds. Wilson's campaign countered with a policy ad stating "Richard Romero opposes death penalty for child molesters who kill their victims."

Following a debate with Romero, former New Mexico Republican Governor David Cargo said that despite her moderate image, Wilson was "essentially a fairly conservative Republican."^[21] That year, the Albuquerque Tribune also wrote, "In reality, Wilson's six-year record of voting in Congress reveals a loyal, dependable vote for the official Republican Party position on the overwhelming majority of issues. Much more so than either of the Republican congressmen who represented Albuquerque before her. During the last three years of [Steve] Schiff's tenure in Congress (1995–1997), he voted the Republican Party line 78 percent of the time. During the last three years of [Manny] Lujan's service (1986–1988), he voted with the House Republican leadership 65 percent of the time."^[21]

Wilson won the election by eight points.

2006

In the 2006 elections, Heather Wilson faced an election day challenge from New Mexico Attorney General Patricia A. Madrid. The race was Wilson's toughest challenge since taking office. Since early September 2006, Wilson had been behind in all polls. For example, a poll taken from October 24–29 by Reuters/Zogby showed Madrid leading Wilson 53-44.^[22] Nevertheless, the election day results were far more favorable to Wilson. According to the Albuquerque Journal on Thursday, November 9, 2006, Wilson possessed a 1,300-plus-vote lead with 99% of the votes counted. Nevertheless, the final results and a formal certification of a winner needed to be delayed until additional hand-tallying of paper ballots and provisional ballots were completed. (Historically many provisional ballots are thrown out because of lack of signatures or many are not registered voters, according to County Clerk Mary Herrera.) Later that same day (November 9), Wilson declared victory in the congressional race, although Madrid refused to concede. Finally, on Tuesday, November 21, 2006, two weeks after the election, Madrid conceded to Heather Wilson. Wilson won the election by 875 (out of 211,000) votes, or 0.4% ^[23]

Tenure[link]

Wilson was the first woman to represent New Mexico since Georgia Lusk in the 1940s.^[24]

From 1999 to 2000 she won several awards including the "Hero of the Taxpayer Award"(1999).^[6]

Wilson was a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a coalition of centrist Republican leaders.^[25] Wilson has appeared on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher.^[26]

Voting patterns

Wilson often described herself as an "independent". According to the Congressional Quarterly, from 2001 to 2003, Wilson voted in agreement with the Republican Party at least 90 percent of the time. This dropped to roughly 80 percent in 2004 and 2005. From 2001 to 2004, she voted in support of president George W. Bush nearly 90 percent of the time, falling to 70 percent in 2005.^[27] The Albuquerque Journal reported several instances in 2004 when Wilson acted in opposition to Republican interests: requiring the Bush administration to release cost figures for his prescription drug plan, lecturing the Republican Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, about the importance of the Geneva Conventions during an Abu Ghraib hearing and opposing a move by House Republicans to protect Tom Delay from his fundraising scandal. Critics said these were calculated moves to moderate her image for her upcoming election. Later, she lost her seat on the House Armed Services Committee due to the actions of Republican Joe Barton, an ally of Delay.^[28][29][30]

Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 Motion to Recommit

In 2003, Wilson joined 221 Republicans and 1 Democrat in voting against a Motion to Recommit the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (HR 1).^[31] The motion would have deleted entire sections of the joint House and Senate compromise bill and replaced them with the respective Senate version. The sections pertained to allowing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. The Secretary would have the authority to use the purchasing power of the federal government to negotiate contracts with manufacturers in order to ensure that enrollees in the new Medicare prescription drug benefit paid the lowest possible price. Drug manufacturers lobbied heavily against drug re-importation and price negotiations in part because of the lower consumer costs it would bring. The Motion to Recommit has been widely used as a political tool designed "to set up 30-second attack ads against vulnerable Members for supporting child molesters and pornography."^[32]

Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act

On January 21, 2004, legislation was introduced by Congressman Fred Upton to increase the fines and penalties for violating the prohibitions against the broadcast of obscene, indecent, or profane language. The effort was "fueled in large measure by the soaring number of complaints about indecency to the F.C.C., nearly 250,000 in 2003 from just 346 in 2001... ."^[33] On February 12, 2004, the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing on the bill, at which representatives of the Federal Communications Commission (Kathleen Q. Abernathy, Jonathan Adelstein, Michael Copps, Kevin Martin, and Michael Powell), major broadcasting corporations (Gail Berman of Fox Broadcasting Company, John Hogan of Clear Channel Communications, Mel Karmazin of Viacom, Harry Pappas of Pappas Telecasting Companies, Bud Paxson of Paxson Communications, Alex Wallau, of ABC, and Alan Wurtzel of ABC), and the National Football League (Paul Tagliabue) testified.^[33] During the hearing, Wilson denounced Karmazin^[34] saying, "You knew what you were doing. You knew what kind of entertainment you're selling, and you wanted us all to be abuzz, here in this room and on the playground in my kids' school, because it improves your ratings. It improves your market share, and it lines your pockets."^[35] Karmazin resigned from Viacom on [June 1], 2004.^[36] Even though "Congressional efforts, both bipartisan, were well under way before the Super Bowl ... ",^[33] CNN's Reliable Sources ran an episode titled, "Is Media Blowing Bush's National Guard Service Out of Proportion?; Congress Discovers Sex" on which Gail Shister, television columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, characterized the congressional hearings as "a tempest in a teacup" and "a great election year issue". Frank Rich, columnist for the New York Times, called the hearings "congressional grandstanding." The bill, H.R. 3717,^[37] passed the House of Representatives on March 26, 2004 by a vote of 391-22-1.^[38]

NSA warrantless domestic surveillance

On February 7, 2006, Heather Wilson, while serving as Chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, called for a full congressional inquiry into the NSA warrantless surveillance. Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times said that "the congresswoman's discomfort with the operation appears to reflect deepening fissures among Republicans over the program's legal basis and political liabilities"^[39] In an interview for the article, Wilson said, "The president has his duty to do, but I have mine too, and I feel strongly about that."

Fired U.S. attorneys

Wilson was accused of and later cleared of improperly attempting to influence a U.S. attorney's investigation.

In February 2007, former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias alleged that Wilson's competitive 2006 campaign for reelection to the House was a significant reason for his dismissal from the Justice Department.^[40][41] Both Wilson and Republican United States Senator Pete Domenici contacted Iglesias in October 2006.^[42]

In a March 2007 statement, Wilson said her October call to Iglesias was to resolve an allegation of ethical impropriety made against Mr. Iglesias. Iglesias denied the charge and Wilson took him at his word. Iglesias never reported the contact, as he was required to do by DOJ rules.^[43]

In July 2007, the United States House Committee on Ethics under the leadership of Chairwoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) did an initial review of the matter, including interviewing Mr. Iglesias.^[44] It decided not to proceed with any investigation of Wilson.^[44] The Justice Department also did a review. Wilson never contacted the Justice Department about Iglesias' performance and the matter was closed.^[44]

Environmental record

Wilson was a member of the Republican Mainstream Partnership, the Chairs of which introduced legislation to make the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a cabinet department.^[45]

Wilson, along with 80 Democrats and 215 other Republicans, supported House passage of the conference report on the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, which opponents argued would "reduce and expedite (speed up) environmental and judicial reviews of forest thinning projects. The bill would authorize $760 million a year from fiscal 2004 to fiscal 2008. The Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service would have the authorization to remove vegetation that could cause or assist the spread of wildfires, disease or insect infestation. All forest thinning project would come after public meetings had been held. Forest thinning would be restricted to land that is within a 1.5 miles of at-risk communities, high-risk land that serves as a home for threatened and endangered species, high-risk land in the area of municipal water sources and and high-risk land that is specifically susceptible to disease or insect infestation."^[45]

Wilson, 36 Democrats, and 192 other Republicans supported House passage of the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005, which would have amended and reauthorized the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to provide greater results conserving and recovering listed species, and for other purposes, including: Repealing the authority to designate an area as "critical habitat" for an endangered species; Requiring the Secretary of the Interior to create "recovery plans" within two years of classifying species as endangered or threatened; Allowing recovery agreements with private citizens whose land may be part of a species recovery plan; Issuing grants to support private property owners who voluntarily help to increase the number of endangered or threatened species on their private land; Providing compensation in an amount no less than fair market value to private landowners who have had regulation imposed upon their land; and, Calling upon the Secretary to submit an annual cost analysis of the previous years spending to Congress, including the amount of Federal and State funds used for each species."^[45]

The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Action Fund, the political advocacy group's Political Action Committee (PAC), named Wilson to its 2006 "Dirty Dozen" list.^[46] Also include in the LCVAF's 2006 list were Senators Rick Santorum (PA), Conrad Burns (MT), and Jim Talent (MO) and Representatives Richard Pombo (CA), Katherine Harris (FL), and Bob Ney (OH).^[46] The LCVAF's press release explained, "LCV is currently or will be in the near future actively campaigning to defeat all of these Members of Congress in the 2006 elections."^[46] As justification for inclusion on the list, the LCVAF stated: "The key purpose of this report is to shine a spotlight on Members of Congress who have consistently sided with the energy industry and against the interests of those they are elected to represent," said LCV President Gene Karpinski. "Each of these seven voted for the disastrous, backward-looking energy bill, which gave billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to oil companies at a time of record breaking profits. All voted to drill in the Arctic Refuge and, with the exception of Rep. Harris, all voted against sensible clean energy solutions such as increased fuel economy standards for cars and trucks."^[46] The LCVAF also issued a press release in which Wilson was criticized by New Mexico farmers for what they saw as her anti-environment stance: she voted against a $58 million dollar fund for voluntary conservation measures in the state.^[47] The League of Conservation Voters gave Wilson an "abysmal" rating on its 2003 National Scorecard, rebuking her for taking more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from the energy lobby.^[48]

Committee assignments[link]

• United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce, 105th Congress (1997–1998) until her retirement after the 110th Congress (2007–2008).^[3]
  • Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality
  • Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials
  • Subcommittee on Health
  • Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet
• United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 106th Congress (1999–2000), 109th Congress (2005–2006), and 110th Congress (2007–2008)
  • Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence (Chair & Ranking Member)
  • Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
• United States House Committee on Armed Services, 107th Congress (2001–2002) and 108th Congress (2003–2004))

2008 U.S. Senate campaign[link]

On October 5, 2007, Wilson announced she would run for the U.S. Senate to replace retiring senator Pete Domenici in 2008.^[49] Wilson raised $2,608,446 for the race,^[50] spending it all in the Primary against Congressman Steve Pearce. Of that total, 73 percent was donated by New Mexicans.^[51] In November, she was expected to have raised about $110,000 at a Washington fundraiser with Vice President Dick Cheney.^[52]

In March 2008, Wilson's primary opponent, Congressman Steve Pearce, received 54.51 % of the delegate vote in a pre-primary nominating convention.^[53] Wilson was defeated by Pearce in the June 3, 2008 primary by a margin of 51% to 49%.^[54] Wilson immediately endorsed Pearce's candidacy, saying that Republicans have "no time for disappointment or for bitterness. Republicans have made their choice and I gladly accept it."^[55] In the general election, Pearce was overwhelmingly defeated by Congressman Tom Udall, 61% to 39%.^[56]

2012 U.S. Senate campaign[link]

On March 7, 2011, Wilson formally entered the race to fill Senator Jeff Bingaman's seat.

References[link]