Bridgend College Launch Event

A launch of our new facilities at our Pencoed Campus is taking place on Thursday 21, October, with a select number of guests invited to an official launch event.

Refreshments will be provided from 11am in the STEAM Academy, with a presentation taking place at 11.30am. Members of staff will lead a tour where guests can explore the fantastic facilities and resources that the campus has to offer.

Please RSVP using the registration form below. Further details will be provided via email ahead of the event.

We opened the doors of our brand new STEAM Academy to students at the beginning of September. This state-of-the-art development is an exciting new building to accommodate teaching, learning and support facilities for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics. Our Land Based Centre provides dedicated facilities for students in this area and complements our extensive outdoor learning environment at our Pencoed Campus. Directions to our Pencoed Campus can be found here.

STEAM Academy is more than just an educational establishment. The development offers many benefits to the local community, including evening and weekend adult learning as well as café facilities for public use. Our 200-seat multi-purpose auditorium and conference facilities can support businesses in the local and wider community. Our central exhibition space is currently home to a collection of original Paul Peter Piech artwork.

The £30m project is partly funded by the Welsh Government through its 21st Century Schools and Colleges Programme. This aims to transform learning experiences for students, ensuring they are taught in an environment that has the technologies and facilities needed to deliver a 21st Century curriculum.

Our new developments are important parts of the College’s journey to delivering net-zero carbon, aligned to our strategic plan to reduce carbon emissions by 25% by 2025.

The Paul Peter Piech Exhibition

(1920 – 1996) Artist and Painter

Paul Peter Piech (1920-1996) was a humanitarian, a propagandist and a prolific printmaker who used his artwork to express his political opinions and also his love of literature, poetry and music.

Piech studied at the Copper Union College of Art, New York. In 1937, he went to work as a graphic artist at Dorlands Advertising Agency. During the Second World War he was posted to Cardiff with the United States Eighth Army Air Force. He made a name for himself in Cardiff, painting images of glamorous blondes on the front of aircrafts.

In the 1960s, Piech set up his own press, the Taurus Press. Over the next decade, he developed his own expressive linocut lettering. His own images were printed alongside the words of politicians and activists.

From 1968, Piech worked freelance as a graphic artist but also taught in art schools including Chelsea, the London College of Printing and Leicester. Piech was a workaholic; he even worked on Christmas Day. He was a man who communicated his anger about man’s inhumanity to man into creative work with a disturbing social message.

In the latter part of his life, after relocating to Porthcawl, Piech started incorporating Welsh language and culture into his iconic work which is still displayed and celebrated across the world.

How the collection came to Bridgend College

In the 1990s, an Access Centre for young people with severe physical and learning difficulties was established within the College with the aim of ensuring access to the curriculum through using Assistive Technology. Piech visited the centre, having been invited by Peter Foley who was then Head of Basic Skills. Piech was so impressed with the students being able to have these opportunities he donated this collection to the College.

Register

*Required

Bridgend College Launch Event

Register

Our Campuses

Google

Latest News