ADAM, Robert

(1728-1792)

   Robert Adam, perhaps the best-known 18th-century Scottish architect, developed an opulent form of Neo-Classical architectural and interior design. Coming from a prominent family of builders, Adam trained with his father and brothers and studied in Italy, where he focused on the examination of Ancient Roman domestic interiors. He then settled in London in 1758, where he became instrumental in leading the classical revival in England.

   Kedelston Hall, located in Derbyshire, England, was one of Adam's first architectural commissions. Originally hired to help design the gardens, Adam was commissioned in 1759 to build the country estate begun by Matthew Brettingham. Adam designed the main façade of the villa with a dramatic, protruding classical portico of six Corinthian columns set in the center of a tripartite façade, while he designed the garden façade with an arched central bay and a shallow dome in emulation of Andrea Palladio's Renaissance villa designs.

   The Syon House, built outside London, is an elegant country estate renovated by Adam in 1762-1769 for the Duke of Northumberland. This building displays Adam's more ornate interiors of colored marble, gilded reliefs, and intricate moldings, which are clearly inherited from the Rococo style but are tempered by a strong classicizing organizational design. Adam's interiors for the estate of Osterley Park, Middlesex, England, from 1761 to 1780, are perhaps his most innovative interior designs. Here, the Etruscan dressing room displays an arrangement of motifs that reveal not just a fanciful rendition of the Etruscan style but a creative use of carefully studied examples from antiquity that Adam would have seen outside Rome. These are the commissions that sealed Adam's fame as an architect known for his unique blend of classical models embellished with his own creative interpretations.

   In 1761, Adam was appointed by King George III as Architect of the King's Works. Although classical purists never approved of Adam's style and therefore never elected him to the Royal Academy, he remained very popular with the English aristocracy, who preferred his more opulent version of classicism to the spare examples prevalent during this time.