Ptolemy Dean
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Ptolemy Dean, a British architect and television presenter. He specialises in historic preservation, as well as designing new buildings that are in keeping with their historic or natural settings. He is best known for his appearances on two BBC television series, Restoration and The Perfect Village.
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[edit] Personal
Dean is the son of Joseph Dean, a judge, and the grandson of the actor and impressario Basil Dean[1] and grew up in Wye in Kent, one of the English Home Counties. One of his sisters is Tacita Dean, the artist.
He studied architecture first at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London, then continued with a post-graduate diploma in architecture from Edinburgh University. At Edinburgh, Dean studied under the late late-modernist Professor Isi Metzstein, building conservation engineer and writer Ted Ruddock and design critic Mike Duriez.
Dean is a reported to be a favourite of Queen Elizabeth II, and a regular guest of the Royal Family.[2]
[edit] Career
[edit] Architecture
After finishing his academic studies, Dean received funding from the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) to document mud adobe structures in New Mexico and Arizona. He then worked for Peter Inskip and Peter Jenkins Architects on a variety of Grade I listed buildings, including Stowe House, Chastleton House and Waddesdon Manor.
Ptolemy completed the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings Scholarship.
He has worked for a number of Britain's more traditionally influenced architects, including Sir William Whitfield, neo-classicist John Simpson, Sir Frederick Gibberd and Richard Griffiths. At Richard Griffith's, he provided heritage assistance in obtaining planning consent for RHWL architects' post-modern influenced extension to St Pancras Chambers.
He now runs his own small practice, Ptolemy Dean Architects, near Borough Market in London.
[edit] Books
Dean has written and illustrated two books on the 19th century British architect Sir John Soane, and co-written a study of London's Borough Market.
[edit] Television
Dean has appeared with Marianne Suhr as the resident "ruin detective" on the BBC Two television programme Restoration. In his seven-episode series The Perfect Village, on BBC Four, Dean visited 12 English villages and discussed the qualities that would create the "perfect village."
[edit] Art and illustration
As seen in his television appearances, Dean produces watercolor cityscapes and architectural renderings or illustrations. These are done in a wobbly line pen and ink technique with evocative color washes, and are vaguely close to the style, technique, and subject matter of the architectural artist Stephen Wiltshire MBE and influenced by the English tradition typified by Samuel Palmer.
[edit] Bibliography
- Dean, Ptolemy. Sir John Soane and the Country Estate (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999; ISBN 1-84014-293-6).
- Dean, Ptolemy, et al.. The Borough Market Book: From Roots to Renaissance (London: Civic Books, 2004; ISBN 1-904104-90-8).
- Dean, Ptolemy. Sir John Soane and London (Aldershot: Lund Humphries, 2006; ISBN 0-7546-3926-6).
- Dean, Ptolemy. Britain's Buildings: Places & Spaces (London: Dorling Kindersley, 2008; ISBN 978-1-4053-2963-7).
