London art gallery Betts Project has opened a new solo exhibition of works by AA alumnus Peter Wilson. This exhibition marks the reopening of the gallery, including a selection of over 80 works of drawings, paintings and models from a series of five projects created between 1983 and the present.

The title of the exhibition is derived from the flourishing culture of hand drawn practice at the AA in the 1970s and 80s, an ‘Indian Summer of Hand Drawing’. Peter Wilson explained: ”We did not know at the time that a digital eclipse was around the corner. Now some years later some of us pencil holding dinosaurs are being visited by scholars of ancient technologies”. The exhibition maps a few moments in the intervening years. It includes the Wilhaminer Pier project in Rotterdam (1994) which was the last hand drawing presentation by Bolles+Wilson, and which collapses three proposals: the Bridgewatcher’s House and Quay, the Landing Square and the Luxor Theatre. Also on display are two projects from the 1984 Bridgebuilding series - The Academia Bridge for Venice which was a proposal for the 3rd Architecture Biennale (1985) directed and put forward by Aldo Rossi, and the Paris Pont des Arts produced at the time for the architecture publication L’Ivre de Pierres. Also in this production pan are drawn researches for the 2016 book ‘Some Reasons for Travelling to Italy’, published by the AA.

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