Peter wilson architecture houston

– Mark Dorrian and Peter Wilson

This is the first part of an edited transcript of a conversation held in Thurloe Sq, London, on 25 July 2020. Peter Wilson’s exhibition ‘Indian Summer and Thereafter’ had opened at Betts Project the previous evening.

Mark Dorrian: What led you to architecture to begin with, Peter?

You began studying at the University of Melbourne in Australia …

Peter Wilson: My first three years were at Melbourne University, there was no Bachelor then—after three years the tradition was to take a year out.

I think of myself as still on an extended year out, forty-five years later.

MD: What was the pedagogic approach of the architecture school?

PW: I believe I was quite lucky … Australia was then at least ten years behind the rest of the world and had not yet updated to sociology-influenced teaching as in America or in Europe.

Our first year was a sort of terminal echo of Itten’s Bauhaus introductory course – making tactile patterns or labyrinths to foll