The College is deeply saddened by the news that our Emeritus Fellow, Professor Dean Hawkes, has died following a short illness. He was 88.
Dean first became a Fellow at Darwin in 1976, and his young family grew up against a backdrop of the then newly established College. It remained central to his social and professional life for the next 50 years, and he and his wife, Christine, were regulars at lunch, dinners and events in College until his illness this summer.
Born in Rochdale in 1938, Dean trained as an architect at Manchester School of Art, before working in practice locally. The opportunity to take up a role as a research assistant at Cambridge’s then fledgling Department of Architecture began his academic career. He completed his PhD at Clare College, exploring how buildings respond to different climactic conditions – the start of a lifetime’s innovation and expertise in architecture and the environment.
Dean’s hugely distinguished career combined teaching and research – including a decade as Director of the Martin Centre, the primary research arm of the department – with award-winning practice. Over 11 years Greenberg & Hawkes, the practice he established with a former student, Stephen Greenberg, won four RIBA Architecture Awards, had 11 projects exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, featured at the Venice Biennale and was widely published in architectural journals.
A seven year hiatus in Wales in the 1990s saw Dean lead design teaching as Professor of Architectural Design at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, while continuing in practice and becoming a finalist in the international competition for the Welsh Assembly building, the Senedd. On his return to Cambridge, his Fellowship at Darwin was reinstated, and since his retirement, in 2002, he has enjoyed a productive writing career.
Dean was a kind and generous man, a natural storyteller with a twinkle in his eye and time for everyone he encountered. He will be much missed by all at Darwin. Our sincere condolences to Christine, and their children and grandchildren.
