Dan Cruickshank
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Professor Dan Cruickshank (born 1949) is an architectural historian and television presenter, currently working for the BBC, and lives in Spitalfields, London.
He has written several books about the architecture of London, particularly on its Georgian architecture, and wrote an authoritative history of the Royal Hospital Chelsea.
He is an Honorary Fellow of Royal Institute of British Architects with a BA in Art, Design and Architecture. For three years he was also a visiting professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Sheffield.
He is a leading expert on architecture and historic buildings, and a frequent contributor to The Architects' Journal and The Architectural Review.
He is an active member of the Georgian Group and a member of the Architectural Panel of the National Trust.
His television credentials include;
- Contributions to the BBC's architecture and nostalgia programme One Foot in the Past, notably about the fate of the Euston Arch and Skylon;
- Invasion, a series examining attempts to invade the British Isles over the years, examining coastal fortresses and defensive structures around the coast of the country, to discover its military heritage;
- Britain's Best Buildings, a series examining architecturally- or culturally-significant buildings in Great Britain;
- Under Fire, a series of programmes visiting museums and buildings in Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel, to see how recent warfare has affected the country's historic artefacts (he also co-authored with David Vincent the book of the series, published by BBC Books in October 2003;
- What The Industrial Revolution Did For Us, a series focusing on the scientific, technological and political changes of the 19th century;
- Around the World in 80 Treasures, charting Cruickshank's five-month trip around the world to visit eighty man-made artefacts or buildings that he has selected, in order to chart the history of mankind's civilisation. A BBC television series and book, first broadcast in 2005.
- The Lost World of Friese-Greene, about Claude Friese-Greene's 1920s road trip from Land's End to John o' Groats, which he filmed using the biolcolour process. A BBC television series first broadcast in 2006.
In 2003, he presented a documentary entitled Towering Ambitions: Dan Cruickshank at Ground Zero following the debate and discussion that led to the selection of Daniel Libeskind's design for the World Trade Center site in New York City.
In 2005, he presented a documentary on the Mitchell and Kenyon collection - a set of rolls of nitrate film taken in the early 20th century, depicting everyday life in Britain, which were discovered in 1994 in Blackburn.
In 2006, he presented "Dan Cruickshank's Marvels of the Modern Age". A series focussing on modernism in design and its roots, from Ancient Greece, through Roman Architecture, to Bauhaus, to 21st century day design.
[edit] Further reading
- Sir Banister Fletcher: Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture - Editor: Dan Cruickshank (Architectural Press, Oxford, 1996) ISBN 0-7506-2267-9
