![#](https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FMarie-Coulon_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=315&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=210&s=232abce45415458ab59a5c56a71df271 210w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FMarie-Coulon_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=630&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=420&s=d5737f006927ff2fdf72b9b5af33ce65 420w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FMarie-Coulon_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1152&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=768&s=3a5ad241008a1ee3804dcf6d2e4e0118 768w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FMarie-Coulon_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1536&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1024&s=d6c10ff1e7ba602f50b81b4326165dd2 1024w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FMarie-Coulon_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=2100&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1400&s=7c1adc515ba67a71c191177f7f9a506b 1400w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FMarie-Coulon_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=2400&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1600&s=f88302c80a6e498aacb466069316c1ce 1600w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FMarie-Coulon_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=2879&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1920&s=65f7282ec46f0553625f4d306bb45dbc 1920w)
A performance artist escaping from Bordeaux to London, Coulon became aware of the potential of architectural drawing through a friend studying at the Architectural Association. Her intuitive appreciation of architectural drawings is not informed through a scholarly knowledge or architectural education – she is quite adamant that she knows nothing about architecture, but through a trained eye and fine judgement that can connect her more strongly with potential collectors, who also perceive the works primarily as visual artefacts.
At the beginning, she put together an informal advisory board that included Hélène Lemoine, Albane Dulliver and Karine Dana, who all happened to be French women with a side-view of architecture – activists, artists, journalists and clients. In a similar move, Coulon did not want to author her gallery, but to find an old-fashioned British name. “I went to a cemetery, that’s the best place to find an old name, and there was Louisa Betts’ tombstone,” she says. Soon dropping Louisa but keeping the more enigmatic Betts, the singular Project is important – “the gallery is the project, and not the works, the projects, of the architects being shown.”
Over the few years since its opening in 2016, Betts Project in Central Street has shown the work of many international architects, including Peter Märkli, Studio Mumbai, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Shin Egashira, Denise Scott-Brown, Caruso StJohn and Alexander Brodsky. The gallery is not just a static repository for objects, however, and it generates a programme of openings and talks by speakers like Assemble and Sam Jacob that contributes to a growing interest in architectural drawing. The small room and the narrow pavement outside means that these are always crowded, and word-of-mouth suffices.
![#](https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FSudio-Mumbai_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=151&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=210&s=1ef3fa73ba771c7df41726adaec0ba9b 210w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FSudio-Mumbai_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=303&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=420&s=f9dfd3fb45780e25604c4d0a5d8533f8 420w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FSudio-Mumbai_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=553&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=768&s=967a1920a5358d02ae75459144b6f6ee 768w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FSudio-Mumbai_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=738&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1024&s=996de95d3b0d6b50d8d5b5ace4153128 1024w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FSudio-Mumbai_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1009&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1400&s=c28e1c506e1d2d52f16c86e4ab11bd1a 1400w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FSudio-Mumbai_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1153&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1600&s=b2805eb5542fb6509e679a0d87d47db3 1600w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FSudio-Mumbai_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1384&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1920&s=27ba33923f05ea7ce06c8c7329a3140d 1920w)
![#](https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FUpstairs-Gallery_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=140&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=210&s=e98ec53562487e8ee69eb519819ff849 210w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FUpstairs-Gallery_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=281&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=420&s=a2766bf1293f6590bb801d5429f25a97 420w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FUpstairs-Gallery_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=514&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=768&s=e683392dd80618275566b1d9f62570f4 768w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FUpstairs-Gallery_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=685&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1024&s=e9d865071e83f9b5798492344406885a 1024w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FUpstairs-Gallery_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=937&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1400&s=aa6e5288215c1557446fcaa3598bb8c0 1400w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FUpstairs-Gallery_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1070&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1600&s=1f89bace5231e81ace074f64f456ad28 1600w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F06%2FUpstairs-Gallery_Betts-Project.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1284&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1920&s=6d363d6e199b9142cf114e296e3b395e 1920w)
Who collects architectural drawings? Architects buy one or two drawings by people whose work they like. Artists also buy drawings, and recently curators from institutions like the Victoria & Albert Museum, the FRAC Centre and MoMA San Francisco have visited. From the beginning, the gallery has been followed by collectors. Some are specialists who know about what they are buying, but many are art collectors who “are first inspired by the drawing, they have a love of the drawing. Their interest moves from the drawing to the architect, while for the architects, it is the other way round. They start with the architect and then look for the drawing.”
Betts Project will be at Art-O-Rama in Marseille, 30 August – 1 September 2019.
This post forms part of our series on The Architecture Drawing Prize: an open drawing competition curated by Make, WAF and Sir John Soane’s Museum to highlight the importance of drawing in architecture.