RCA
RCA Summer School applications closing soon: Curating, Contemporary Art, Architecture and Illustration
04 Jun 2026
Experience the RCA’s studio-based learning philosophy live online and on campus this summer.
Tim Brennan uses design to support health, the way we walk, and improve our posture
04 Jun 2026
Tim Brennan (MA Industrial Design Engineering, 2002) is a visionary innovator whose journey through the world of design and engineering has created a new category in the footwear industry and helped to transform the health of countless individuals.
Fashion is Art: Anna Deller-Yee on her Met Gala collaboration with Mugler
02 Jun 2026
RCA Fashion MA Alumna Anna Deller-Yee reflects on the intense process of transforming a Mugler dress into a hand-painted masterpiece for Emma Chamberlain.
Royal College of Art announces Aids to Navigation research project to develop sustainable, low-cost marine aids to navigation for developing nations
26 May 2026
The Royal College of Art announces the Aids to Navigation research project to develop sustainable, low-cost marine aids to navigation for developing nations
Eastside Community Heritage and Royal College of Art unite to bring hidden histories of Newham to life through public art
22 May 2026
Announcement of a new project to commission a major public artwork celebrating the overlooked communities of the London Borough of Newham
IN SESSION: What is at Stake? Exploring urgency, drive and the making of sense in contemporary art practice.
22 May 2026
Free online talk hosted by the RCA exploring urgency, drive and the making of sense in contemporary art practice.
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22 May 2026
Find out more about the RCA's diverse, inclusive, dynamic, critically engaged, collaborative creative environment – and the staff, students and alumni who are using their creativity to shape our world
Creating space for research to unfold with Teal Triggs
14 May 2026
Professor Teal Triggs reflects on trust, peer exchange and experimental publishing as vital supports for doctoral researchers.
Jenny Hu on designing as a way to explore the friction between technology and everyday experience
12 May 2026
The Innovation Design Engineering alumna and Journee Rentals co-founder discusses her foundational years at the RCA and why building something 'real' is important for designers early on.
TS Ahmed: The pioneering Sudanese artist & RCA alumnus
29 Apr 2026
Prints preserved in the RCA's Special Collections are revealing the remarkable early career of Sudanese artist, T S Ahmed.
Featured
Typewriters, the office machines that preceded computers
By Kiron Kasbekar | 10 Apr 2025
You see office tables today equipped with desktop computers or laptops. But think of the 1970s, and what would you have been seeing?
Wishful thinking about cars
By Kiron Kasbekar | 05 Apr 2025
Donald Trump may be many things, but a good economist he is not. Accustomed to dictating terms to people he has worked with,
The history of safety glass
By Kiron Kasbekar | 26 Mar 2025
You probably already knew that the world’s VIPs move around in cars with bullet-proof glass windscreen and windows. But did you know that ‘bulletproof glass’ is not really bulletproof?
German silver: used in cutlery, music, electricals - but it’s not silver
By Kiron Kasbekar | 20 Mar 2025
This material, which was first developed in China, not Germany, and is an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc, has lost its sheen in home uses, but finds favor in electrical engineering.
Pioneers – the Wrights and Glenn Curtiss launched the aircraft industry
By Kiron Kasbekar | 17 Mar 2025
First Orville and Wilbur Wright flew their plane, the ‘Wright Flyer’, from near a small town called Kitty Hawk. Then Glenn Curtiss built planes with a very different system of controls, which has lasted until now.
What do aircraft have in common with bicycles and motorcycles?
By Kiron Kasbekar | 17 Mar 2025
From chains and sprockets to direct drives—If someone asked you what aircraft have in common with bicycles and motorcycles, how would you respond?
Radar’s ancestors: From sound mirrors to modern detection technology
By Kiron Kasbekar | 11 Mar 2025
Radar has become a well-settled technology today, especially in the field of navigation.
Nokia Bell Labs: innovations in communication, computing, technology
By Omar Almeida | 08 Mar 2025
Bell Laboratories, or Bell labs, which has now become Nokia Bell Labs, is one of the most renowned research and development organizations in the history of science and technology.
Company story – Quaker Oats
By Kiron Kasbekar | 08 Mar 2024
Quaker Oats is a company whose products I remember from my childhood days. Years before a foreign exchange crisis caused the Indian government to impose curbs on consumer product imports, we used to see a host of foreign brands in the Indian market. Including Quaker Oats, which I remember eating when I was a child, and which has been available for the past two decades or more.
