London’s Royal Academy of Arts

The anniversaries of celebrated cultural institutions are Janus-like: they look backwards to history to commemorate and celebrate - and forwards towards modernisation and change. Marking its 250 th "birthday” this year, London’s Royal Academy of Arts has made a huge and optimistic affirmation of its future, and thus of the role of art in the society which it inhabits. Its private supporters have backed an enormous fundraising campaign, with some £84 million raised to support a physical expansion of the Academy’s premises which underlines a much enhanced engagement with both professional practitioners and the general public.