Key details
Date
- 6 April 2009
Author
- RCA
Read time
- 1 minute
The Royal College of Art today announced that its new Fine Art block will be called the DYSON BUILDING in honour of the English industrial designer, inventor and entrepreneur whose educational charity, the James Dyson Foundation, recently pledged £5 million to support the project.
Key details
Date
- 6 April 2009
Author
- RCA
Read time
- 1 minute
With a gross internal area of 4613sqm, the Dyson Building represents the most substantial phase of the RCA’s new campus development in Battersea, South London. It will house the departments of printmaking and photography as well as a large column-free gallery, a state-of-the-art Lecture Theatre, conference facilities and 1000sqm dedicated to incubator units for young creatives. The building has been designed by architects Haworth Tompkins.
Together with the adjoining Sculpture and Painting buildings, the Dyson Building is part of an ambitious three-stage expansion plan for the Royal College, due to be completed by July 2012. The campus will house the School of Fine Art, as well as the accommodation for start-up units for new businesses in design.
The new premises will offer ultra-modern studio and workshop space for photography and printmaking as well as a new gallery and large lecture theatre. The development will be car free with 58 cycle spaces and a minibus linking to the College’s South Kensington site.
The Rector of the Royal College of Art, Sir Christopher Frayling, says:
“It is terrific that we can acknowledge Sir James’s great act of generosity towards the Royal College of Art in this very public and stylish way. Already recognised as one of the best art and design schools on the planet, with the completion of our new world-class building, we will become even more attractive to top students and staff. This donation is all the more remarkable because philanthropy – famously – has been shutting down everywhere during the recession.”
The James Dyson Foundation’s £5m donation is the largest ever single private donation in the long history of the Royal College of Art. It will also release more than £1.6m from a government-led matched funding scheme that aims to increase voluntary giving to higher education providers.
Following the completion of this phase of the RCA’s new development the College aims to construct a new home for the Applied Art departments on the same site.