"Peter Cotton's underappreciated designs represent modernism at its best: compact and flexible and made from low-maintenance materials. While he was still an architecture student, Cotton’s steel-rod furniture and lighting won numerous awards, were distributed nationally and were featured in international publications.

Cotton’s schooling at the University of British Columbia was interrupted by the Second World War. He served overseas with the Canadian forces for five years, then returned to study architecture intermittently at UBC from 1947 until he graduated in 1955, during which time he helped to establish its School of Architecture. Between 1951 and 1954, Cotton, along with the interior architect Alfred Staples, also manufactured and marketed their own designs, initially under the name Cotton Lamp Studio (1951) and then as Perpetua Furniture (1952-54) in Vancouver's South Granville district. Morgan’s department stores sold the line in Eastern Canada. Cotton and Staples also accepted custom commissions and provided interior design services. The pair shared NIDC awards for a settee and matching armchair in 1953, and Cotton won an individual award for his high-back armchair. By this time, about a dozen of his well known designs were registered in the NIDC Design Index.

With the closing of Perpetua in 1954, Cotton moved to Victoria, B.C., and later supervised the reconstruction program at Victoria’s Government House. He was a founding member of the Northwest chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians and the Crystal Gardens Preservation Society Foundation and also a director of the Hallmark Heritage Society."