The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a

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London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

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, with campuses in

South Kensington South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...

, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely

postgraduate Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree. The organization and ...

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

and

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...

university in the United Kingdom. It offers postgraduate degrees in art and design to students from over 60 countries.

History

The RCA was founded in Somerset House in 1837 as the Government School of Design or Metropolitan School of Design.

Richard Burchett Richard Burchett (1815–1875) was a British artist and educator on the fringes of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who was for over twenty years the Headmaster of what later became the Royal College of Art. He was later described as "a promin ...

became head of the school in 1852. In 1853 it was expanded and moved to

Marlborough House Marlborough House, a Grade I listed mansion in St James's, City of Westminster, London, is the headquarters of the Commonwealth of Nations and the seat of the Commonwealth Secretariat. It was built in 1711 for Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marl ...

, and then, in 1853 or 1857, to

, on the same site as the South Kensington Museum. It was renamed the Normal Training School of Art in 1857 and the National Art Training School in 1863. During the later 19th century it was primarily a

teacher training college A normal school or normal college is an institution created to train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high school level, turni ...

; pupils during this period included George Clausen, Christopher Dresser,

Luke Fildes __NOTOC__ Sir Samuel Luke Fildes (3 October 1843 – 28 February 1927) was a British painter and illustrator born in Liverpool and trained at the South Kensington and Royal Academy Schools. He was the grandson of the political activist Mar ...

, Kate Greenaway and Gertrude Jekyll. In September 1896 the school received the name Royal College of Art, and the emphasis of teaching there shifted to the practice of art and design. Teaching of graphic design, industrial design and product design began in the mid-twentieth century. The school expanded further in the 1960s, and in 1967 it received a

Royal Charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but s ...

which gave it the status of an independent university with the power to grant its own degrees. In July 2020, the Royal College of Art launched its first-ever online graduate exhibition
RCA2020

Campuses

The RCA today has three campuses located in

, Battersea and White City. The Darwin Building in Kensington Gore. South Kensington, was completed 1960-1963. It is a short distance from the RCA's home 1896-1967 in the Henry Cole Building, now part of the

V&A Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

. The Darwin Building was designed by a team of RCA staff members, H. T. Cadbury-Brown,

Hugh Casson Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson (23 May 1910 – 15 August 1999) was a British architect. He was also active as an interior designer, as an artist, and as a writer and broadcaster on twentieth-century design. He was the director of architecture for t ...

and Robert Goodden. and since 2001 has been a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. It is named after painter Sir Robert Vere Darwin, known as Robin Darwin, who was RCA Rector at the time it was commissioned. Although there was modest development into the mews behind the Darwin Building, the restricted site meant further expansion had to be in another part of London. In 1991 the

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...

department moved to a converted factory in Battersea. In the early 2000s the college conceived a substantial extension on the site, with a minibus service linking it to Kensington. After a redevelopment by Wright & Wright Architects, Wright & Wright (budget £4.3m, floor area 2,500 sq m), the Sculpture Building opened in Battersea in January 2009. In 2018 the RCA was granted planning permission to redevelop the Sculpture building into a new Arts & Humanities building, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, with work planned for completion in late 2021. A masterplan was commissioned from Haworth Tompkins and phase 1 of their three-phase design was completed with the opening of the Sackler Building on 19 November 2009, to house the painting department. Its name commemorates a major gift by Mortimer Sackler, The Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation. Darwin Building Entrance, Royal College of Art, Jay Mews

Darwin Building Entrance, Royal College of Art, Jay Mews

The Dyson Building, named in honour of James Dyson, whose charity donated £5m towards the £21m cost, was opened on 24 September 2012. It houses printmaking and photography, and contains an innovation wing where start-up designers can launch their businesses. The Woo Building was opened on 30 September 2015, completing the Battersea project. It is named in honour of Woo Po-shing, Sir Po-Shing and Lady Helen Woo, who have funded scholarships at the RCA since the 1990s. It accommodates the Ceramics & Glass and Jewellery & Metal programmes. The building's Anodizing, anodised aluminium gates were designed by alumnus Max Lamb. In 2017 RCA White City became the third RCA campus, co-located with the BBC Media Village and accommodating the School of Communication, Animation and Digital Direction and Communication Design in buildings designed by Allies and Morrison.

Courses

The RCA offers a Graduate diploma, Graduate Diploma pre-masters conversion programme, Master of Arts, MA, Master of Research, MRes, Master of Philosophy, MPhil and Doctor of Philosophy, PhD degrees in twenty-eight subject areas, divided into four schools: architecture, arts & humanities, communication, and design. The history of design programme is in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum; there are two double MA/Master of Science, MSc programmes with Imperial College London. In addition to formal qualifications the RCA also offers Summer school and Executive education courses throughout the year. Academic English, English for academic purposes (EAP) courses are offered to applicants who need to improve their academic English ability to meet the College's entry requirements. In early 2019, the RCA announced the launch of its new GenerationRCA programme. GenerationRCA -among other initiatives- will also "inject science disciplines into the mix of creative disciplines traditionally on offer." The new programmes will include Environmental Architecture and Digital Direction; with future programmes centred on nano and soft robotics, computer science, and machine learning, material science and the circular economy.

Rankings

In 2022, the RCA was placed first in the art and design subject area in the QS World University Rankings published by Quacquarelli Symonds for the eighth year in a row, with an overall score of 99.6/100. In August 2015 it was ranked first on a list of master's courses in fashion by Business of Fashion, a fashion website. In April 2011 the RCA was ranked first on a list of UK graduate art schools compiled by ''Modern Painters (magazine), Modern Painters'' magazine from a survey of professionals in the art world. In the Research Assessment Exercise of December 2008, 40% of the research output of the school received the highest (4* or "world-leading") assessment, the third-highest rating in the art and design subject area; over all subject areas only about fifty institutions received a higher rating.

Alumni

The Royal College of Art and its predecessor schools have numerous notable alumni. Among those who studied in the RCA predecessor bodies in the nineteenth century were Sir George Clausen, Christopher Dresser, Sir

, Kate Greenaway, Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens. Alumni from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries include the sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, painters Frank Auerbach, David Hockney, Bridget Riley, Peter Blake (artist), Sir Peter Blake, Gavin Turk and Charles Tunnicliffe, artists Jake and Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin and R. B. Kitaj, fashion designers Ossie Clark and Zandra Rhodes, industrial designers James Dyson, Sir Jonathan Ive and David Mellor (cutler), David Mellor, film directors Tony Scott, Tony and Ridley Scott, writer Travis Jeppesen, designers Thomas Heatherwick and architect Sir David Adjaye, prominent member of the suffragette movement Sylvia Pankhurst, the musician Ian Dury, sound artist Janek Schaefer, and the actor Alan Rickman. The Royal College of Art Society amalgamated with OSARCA (the Old Students Association of the RCA 1912) for the benefit of graduates and associates of the Royal College of Art.

Faculty

Academic and research staff include: On February 25, 2021, Virgil Abloh joined staff as a Visiting Professor "to reinforce the importance of education and hands on mentorship of future generations."

Awards and prizes

The Royal College of Art has several awards and prizes which it confers on its graduating students. These include the Sheila Robinson, Sheila Robinson Drawing Prize.