Peter Neve Cotton

British Columbia's first architectural historian and first serious restoration architect, Cotton was born in Merritt, B.C. and educated in New Westminster and Vancouver. After serving in Egypt and Italy during WW II, he enrolled at the University of British Columbia. He was instrumental in pressuring the University to establish the School of architecture (from which he graduated in 1955). After an apprenticeship with Col. W. Ridgeway Wilson, he joined the design section, Public Works, Department of the Provincial Government. He specialized in and then became Architect in Charge of Interior Design for the Government House reconstruction project. Cotton opened a private practice in Victoria in 1960s. He worked in a West Coast Expressionist style (i.e. his own house in James Bay) but through his restoration work also exhibited a strong vein of historicism based on local vernacular buildings. He published numerous articles relating to the architectural history of British Columbia, was instrumental in founding the North West Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historian, and was one of the first chairs of the Victoria Heritage Advisory Committee. Fort Langley, Fisgard Lighthouse, and Craigflower Manor are some of the early British Columbia restoration projects handled by his office. Peter Cotton died in 1978.

Projects contained in this site:

Law Chambers restoration, Bastion Square 1970