Amnesty receives support from Marco Goldschmied alongside his support for architecture prize

Amnesty International is delighted to be receiving substantial financial support from leading architect Marco Goldschmied alongside his support for the prestigious Stirling Prize.

The Marco Goldschmied Foundation is donating the £20,000 cash prize for this year’s Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize, the UK’s foremost architecture prize, and making a matched donation of £20,000 to the Amnesty Arts Fund at the same time. In this way he hopes that an ongoing relationship between the architecture and design community and the human rights movement will be established.

The donation will help to support the Amnesty Arts Fund’s vital work using the arts to explore human rights abuses around the world and tell the human stories behind them. This work includes standing up for individuals who have been imprisoned, tortured or ‘disappeared’ for peacefully expressing their views. In oppressive regimes, the artistic community often suffers first as freedom of expression is denied.

Marco Goldschmied said:

“Architecture needs to lead in the field of the arts, as well as in the environment and society. I am therefore delighted to sustain the Stirling Prize as a leading award alongside the Booker and Turner prizes for literature and art. At the same time I am making a matching contribution to the Amnesty Arts Fund, as I passionately believe that as a profession we should do what we can to remove oppression and injustice in the world.”

Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:

“Marco Goldschmied has supported Amnesty’s work for many years and made a huge difference to what we are able to achieve. He gives generously of his time and skills, as well as financial support, something we greatly appreciate. Amnesty hopes this new sponsorship of the Stirling Prize and support for our work will be part of a growing relationship between human rights work and the architecture and design community.”