A suitcase full of shadows

Adalbert von Chamisso’s story of the lad who sold his own shadow makes for an intriguing precursor of Peter Wilson who seems to cast longer and longer shadows over the places he visits and the buildings he transforms. Wilson steps into a long line of travel writers and reveals a particular affinity with those who were friends with artists. As a matter of fact, he travels through their pictures no less than through the land they depicted. Their fusion of topography (satisfying learned curiosity) with suffused Stimmung (for an immersive recollection of what usually remained a once-in-a-lifetime exploration of idealised landscapes) returns with a twist in Wilson’s version of a guidebook in which his own experiences as an architect insinuate themselves into the account no less than his watercolours bridge the gap that separates us from our precursors on the road.