Robert Adam

Robert Adam: The Search for a Modern Classicism examines the work of Robert Adam, director of the largest traditional architectural firm in Europe, ADAM Architecture. Turning to traditional design in the early 1970s, when it was unfashionable, Adam was granted a scholarship at the British School at Rome. In the following years his research, studies and writing backed up his growing portfolio of classical and traditional projects. He became one of the major spokesmen for the emerging body of traditional designers in the UK and abroad in the 1980s, defending and promoting traditional design in the face of savage opposition from the modernist architectural establishment. At the same time, he developed a unique position by drawing from the entire classical tradition from ancient Greece to the 1930s in a search for continuing relevance and modernity. Adam is now confident that traditional architecture and urbanism will continue to be recognised, if not actively supported, by the profession. He hopes that it will develop further to take a more prominent place as a significant participant in the improvement of the built environment and as a major challenge to the orthodoxy of modernism.