Award-winning philanthropist Dame Vivien Duffield has announced grants totalling £8.2m to open up new creative learning spaces for children and young people in 11 cultural organisations across England, including galleries, theatres and Kensington Palace.
 
The recipients are: The Donmar Warehouse; The Holburne Museum, Bath; Kensington Palace; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Museum of Liverpool; National Theatre; Porthcurno Telegraph Museum, Cornwall; Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon; Tate Britain; Turner Contemporary, Margate; Whitworth Gallery, Manchester.
 
Dame Vivien Duffield said: “I believe passionately that children and young people deserve the very best opportunities to benefit from the transforming power of our world class cultural organisations. I am delighted that we have been able to support such outstanding projects created by some of the best architects, in museums, galleries and theatres across the country – even in a royal palace. Now more than ever, I believe that culture should be at the heart of our children’s learning.”

The projects are scheduled to open over the next three years. There will be six Clore Learning Studios or Spaces; one interactive gallery for under 5s; and four Clore Learning Centres. Donations are ranging from £125,000 to £2.5m and span three theatres; three museums; four art galleries; and one royal palace.

The Clore Duffield Foundation has a long track record of funding Clore learning spaces/centres within museums, galleries and heritage sites, and occasionally within performing arts organisations, with donations ranging from around £5,000 to £2.5m.

The new donations will bring the total amount we have spent on Clore Learning Spaces since 2000 to £23,631,763 – almost half of the £50m donated since the Clore Foundation merged with the Vivien Duffield Foundation in 2000.

Recipients have primarily been museums and galleries, but have included a palace (Hampton Court) a garden (the Clore Learning Centre at the RHS at Wisley) and a library and archive (the Women’s Library in Whitechapel).

In announcing the grants Duffield said: “We are celebrating the fact that we are making a new major investment in our cultural learning infrastructure in England.”

In touching on her reasons for the donation, Duffield said: “Right from my early philanthropic days creating Eureka, The National Children’s Museum in Halifax in the 1980s – and before – I have always had a commitment to supporting children’s exploration of the world and engagement with culture. It’s what I was given as a child in France, and it’s what every one of the 11 million children and young people in England should have access to.

“I have also always been keen to push cultural organisations to create the very best learning spaces and learning programmes. We have learnt a lot along the way and we are keen to share that experience as much as we can by advising applicants on the creation and fit-out of their spaces whether or not we fund them – my Foundation has published a great deal on this subject.

“I also wanted to make the point that we are not plugging any government funding gap here. We are doing what we have always done, and what we will continue to do: supporting the things we care about and the organisations whose work we admire.

“There is a complex ecology of funding in the arts world and philanthropy will always be part of the public/private mix. There is no silver bullet which will make the role of philanthropy any more important than it already is. But I hope today we are showing the importance of investing in the future.

“Anthony Sargent of the Sage made a great point at a recent Cultural Learning Alliance event: “It is more important to invest in education for a civilized society for the future than to entertain ourselves now.” He has a point – and all the organisations represented here today do both things very successfully.”

She added she was particularly pleased that all have the new spaces have been designed by leading world class architects.

“There is no sense in which these learning spaces are lesser creations than their gallery or stage counterparts – they are on an equal footing, with the same level of architectural care and attention.”

Nicholas Hytner, director of the National Theatre, which has been given £2.5m to create a Clore Learning Centre as part of its major new £70m redevelopment, said: “The Clore Duffield Foundation under Vivien’s leadership has been a pioneer in supporting exciting, creative spaces for learning, which are authentic and distinctive to the museums, theatres and other cultural buildings that house them. At the National Theatre, the Foundation’s generosity and vision will support the creation of a unique place for learning which will transform our programmes.

“Cultural learning – and our commitment, as arts organisations to education and participation – is as important now as it has ever been. At this time, more than ever, we are enormously grateful to Vivien’s inspired support for this crucial part of our work.”