Royal College of Art Marks Gift from Manfred and Lydia Gorvy

The RCA's kiln room, ‘The Engine Room’, is at the heart of the Ceramics & Glass facilities on the Battersea campus. Containing 21 kilns of varying sizes, this year they will be used by 63 students across the programme. In addition to bringing 10 new MA programmes onto the College’s curriculum over the course of the next few years – focusing on the future challenges of the digital age – the RCA is proud to champion, with equal importance, the traditional arts disciplines and processes the College was founded on – the generosity of friends such as Manfred and Lydia Gorvy ensures this can continue.

This gift marks another milestone in the RCA’s GenerationRCA campaign, an ambitious five-year programme representing the world leading College’s most significant development since it was founded in 1837. GenerationRCA will transform its campuses and the ways in which the university teaches, researches and creates. On a site immediately opposite its existing Battersea campus, the RCA is opening a new state-of-the-art building, designed by internationally acclaimed architects Herzog & de Meuron. A landmark for London and British higher education, the development sets a new blueprint for creative education worldwide.

As members of the RCA’s Chancellor’s Circle, Manfred and Lydia Gorvy are key supporters of the RCA. Previous generosity to the College includes a significant gift in 2013, to fund the Gorvy Lecture Theatre in the Dyson Building (also part of the Battersea Campus). The couple’s philanthropy extends to many other cultural institutions including V&A, National Gallery, Tate and performing arts organisations as well as Jewish and disability causes.

Manfred Gorvy is a South African investor and philanthropist based in London. He is the founder and chairman of Hanover Acceptances, an investment firm with interests in property, food, agriculture and financial services. Lydia Gorvy has served on the Board of Directors of Hanover Acceptances since 1991 and, along with her husband, is a keen art collector.

ENDS 

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