11 Facts About Dan Cruickshank

Daniel Gordon Raffan Cruickshank was born on 26 August 1949 and is a British art historian and BBC television presenter, with a special interest in the history of architecture.

Dan Cruickshank is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Artists, a member of the executive committee of the Georgian Group and on the Architectural Panel of the National Trust, and is an Honorary Fellow of RIBA.

Dan Cruickshank has served as Historic Buildings Consultant for ADAM Architecture since 1999 and has been involved in the repair and restoration of many historical buildings including Spencer House in St James's, Heveningham Hall in Suffolk and numerous early 18th-century houses in Spitalfields and other parts of London.

Dan Cruickshank edited the 20th edition of Sir Banister Fletcher's History of Architecture and Timeless Architecture: a study of key buildings in architectural history and is a contributing editor to Architects' Journal, The Architectural Review and Perspectives on Architecture.

Dan Cruickshank began his career with the BBC as consultant, writer and presenter on the architectural programmes One Foot in the Past and The House Detectives.

Dan Cruickshank contributed films to the Timewatch and Omnibus strands.

In 2004, Cruickshank was at the centre of a controversy when historian Marc Morris said that a documentary about Harlech Castle shown on BBC4 and billed as "written and presented by Dan Cruickshank" contained obvious borrowings from Morris's earlier Channel 4 series, Castle.

The BBC subsequently stated that Dan Cruickshank was not responsible and that it was an error by researchers.

In 2005, Dan Cruickshank presented Around the World in 80 Treasures, charting his five-month trip around the world to visit eighty man-made artefacts or buildings that he had selected, in order to chart the history of mankind's civilisation.

In 2006, Dan Cruickshank presented Marvels of the Modern Age, a series focusing on the development of modernism in design, from Greek and Roman architecture, to Bauhaus and the present.

Dan Cruickshank had previously lived in a Victorian house in Bloomsbury when he was a student in the 1970s.