About

Professor Robert Adam has been a principal in practice for 45 years and has an international reputation as one of the leading exponents of modern traditional and classical design. Educated at the University of Westminster, he won the Bannister Fletcher Prize and gained a special scholarship to the British School at Rome Scholarship in 1972. From 1977 he was a partner in a Winchester firm. In 2021 he gained a Doctorate in philosophy from Oxford Brookes University.

In 1992, from the original practice, he founded ADAM Architecture, now the largest architecture practice specialising in traditional design in Europe. He has also pioneered contextual urban design on a number of urban extensions and new districts. Other design work includes furniture, with one piece on permanent display in the Victoria and Albert Museum. He has written six books, including the principal textbook on classical architecture and an analysis of how globalisation has affected world architecture, and is a regular contributor of papers, articles and chapters to books, journals and newspapers.

He is a visiting professor of urban design at the University of Strathclyde and has established a summer school of classical architecture in Sweden. In his career he has held many positions on government and other committees, was the honorary secretary of the RIBA, and has founded two charities. He has won numerous prizes including the world’s highest value architectural award, the Richard H. Driehaus Prize, for “the highest ideals of traditional and classical architecture in contemporary society”.

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Publications

Robert Adam has written six books and published numerous articles and papers. Books have also been written on his work.

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Education

Robert Adam is a visiting professor of urban design at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He has taught architecture at the Prince of Wales’ School of Architecture and has been a visiting critic at several universities in the UK and abroad. He lectures regularly at universities and in public venues. He established the Englesberg course in classical architecture in Sweden, which ran for four years. He teaches in summer schools in the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands. He established a part time course in classical design at the University of Oxford, from 2023. He has established a week’s course in Composition and Symbolism in Classical Architecture for 2024.

Architect Robert Adam: A Place at the Table — With Geoffrey Baer

Defining Tradition

The Modernity of Tradition

How Chicago Traditions Became Global and How Global Architecture has come back to Chicago

The Role of Evolution and the Invention of Tradition in Identity in the Built Environment

Tradition and Rural Regeneration

Anywhere and Somewhere: Globalisation, Populism and Modern Architecture

Memory is the Treasury and Guardian of all Things

Time for Architecture' by Dr Robert Adam CSCA

An interview with Robert Adam by Samuel Hughes for the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation.

The role of evolution and invention of tradition in identity and the built environment.

The Problem and Traditions of Modernity for the Traditional Architecture Group

Why are modern buildings so weird?

Vernacular as Style

The Architectural Wisdom of the General Population

Activism

Robert Adam has been active in the promotion of good design, the professional acceptance of traditional design and the advancement of scholarship for 35 years. He has been one of the founders of several national and international organisations, has been elected by his profession to the governance of their institute, and continues to engage in design review nationally and locally.