Dorfman donates ‘7-figure’ sum to Royal Academy for architecture

Entrepreneur and arts philanthropist Lloyd Dorfman has donated a “seven-figure sum” to the Royal Academy of Arts to celebrate architecture.

The RA is in the middle of a £50m building project to overhaul its Piccadilly home in the run-up to its 250th anniversary next year. Some of Mr Dorfman’s donation will go towards the restoration of rooms to house a new dedicated architecture space and gallery in Burlington Gardens.

The RA declined to specify the exact size of the donation, but it is thought to be between £5m and £10m. The gift from the Dorfman Foundation, set up by the founder of Travelex, the foreign exchange group, will also be used to create two annual architecture awards.

The Royal Academy Architecture Prize, a non-monetary award honouring “an inspiring and enduring contribution to the culture of architecture”, will be open to non-architects as well as practitioners. The Royal Academy Dorfman Award will give £10,000 a year to “new talents” in architecture.

At an event to announce the gift on Thursday, Charles Saumarez Smith, RA chief executive, said the public knew the RA primarily for its focus on art, though it had always admitted both artists and architects to its membership and many of the latter, such as Edwin Lutyens, Hugh Casson and Nicholas Grimshaw, had served as RA president.

“Many people think of the RA in terms of painting and sculpture. Lloyd Dorfman’s gift will help change this,” Mr Saumarez Smith said.

The 250th anniversary building project, designed by David Chipperfield, will create a 260-seat lecture theatre and new galleries.

Mr Saumarez Smith said the new building would “transform public perceptions of what the academy is”.

“The historic building . . . was originally a private house in a courtyard off Piccadilly, therefore in a way the character of the institution has been determined by the nature of the building. It’s been a private institution,” he said.

Mr Dorfman is a well-known donor to the arts. A trustee at the Royal Opera House and a former trustee at the National Theatre, where one stage is named after him, he supported a long-running scheme to offer a proportion of seats at cheaper rates — the so-called “Travelex tickets” — at both institutions. He has given to the South Bank, the Donmar Warehouse, the Royal Court, the Royal Ballet School, Sadler's Wells and the Roundhouse.

He said on Thursday that he had a longstanding interest in architecture, sharpened more recently by his investment in a flexible office space company, The Office Group, where he chairs the board. Blackstone last month agreed to take a majority stake in the company, which has 36 buildings mainly in central London, valuing it at £500m.