Photographer Rineke Dijkstra Honorary Doctorate at the Royal College of Art

Architect Bernard Tschumi; Photographer Rineke Dijkstra; Junichi Arai, Textile Designer; and Graphic designer Jan van Toorn are all receiving Honorary Doctorates at the Royal College of Art convocation ceremony at 11am on Friday 1 July 2011.

Royal College of Art Honorands are awarded for their significant contribution to culture and industry both internationally and in the UK. The highly distinguished figures will join over four hundred students who are receiving postgraduate degrees from RCA Provost Sir Terence Conran at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery will also receive a Senior Fellowship, and Lord Jonathan Kestenbaum – Chairman and Chief Executive of Five Arrows Limited and Former Chief Executive, NESTA becomes an Honorary Fellow. Swiss-born Bernard Tschumi has had an illustrious career as an architect, theorist, and academic. He has taught at a number of significant schools including the Architectural Association in London and Columbia University, to name a few. Designer of iconic buildings, the New Acropolis Museum is just one of his many accomplishments.

Dutch Photographer Rineke Dijkstra trained at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. Her award-winning photographs have appeared in numerous international exhibitions, including the 1997 and 2001 Venice Biennale, the 1998 Bienal de Sao Paulo, Turin's Biennale Internationale di Fotografia in 1999, and the 2003 International Center for Photography's Triennial of Photography and Video in New York.

Junichi Arai was born in 1932 in Kiryu of Japan. In the 1970s and 1980s, he collaborated with renowned fashion designers such as Issey Miyake to integrate the innovation of fabrics into fashion design. His work is included in the permanent collections of many museums including the Victoria and Albert museum London and the Museum of Modern Art New York

JWorld-renowned Dutch graphic designer, Jan van Toorn began his career in a printing works as a teenager. Since then his work has become synonomous with design at the very highest level of practice. With an international reputation as both designer and educator, In 2009, Van Toorn was invited to give the prestigious D&AD President's Lecture.