This rewarding and attractive book is the first comprehensive appraisal of the work of Robert Adam since David King’s Complete Works of Robert and James Adam (Reference King1991; he is a contributor to the volume under review). Like many architectural histories nowadays, the volume under review is a multi-authored work arising from a conference and organised by the Georgian Group in 2015. As director of the Survey of London (now at the Bartlett School of Architecture), its editor and contributor, Colin Thom, has considerable experience knitting the work of different scholars together into a seamless whole and the book benefits from that expertise. His introductory essay sets the scene. It is an authoritative overview of the work of the brothers Adam and one that should be recommended reading on university courses, or indeed for anyone who has a serious interest in the topic. In his other essay, Thom draws on the important work he does at the Survey, opening up a whole new chapter in the Adam urban-planning oeuvre, the design of Portland Place. That ambitious scheme, little of which survives, has been overlooked in favour of Adelphi development. We now have a more complete picture of the Adama brothers’ work as urban developers.
Different contributors combine to capture the lively relationship within the family (see Alistair Rowan’s contribution on the eldest brother) and how they worked together practically and in many areas, for example, in the collecting of antiquities. Jonathan Yarker’s chapter on this topic is eye-opening. Naturally, the focus returns to the most talented in the family, Robert Adam himself (or ‘Bob’ as he was known familiarly).
The trend in scholarship since 1991 has of course been away from traditional visual analysis, but the work of Adriano Aymonino and Miranda Hausberg demonstrate how careful art historical analysis yields genuine insights into the cultural achievement of Robert (albeit always in one way or another assisted by his brothers, and indeed others). This reviewer found Aymonino’s analysis of the antique sources for the famous Adam style of decoration compelling. We learn not just about its sources, but also why the style was so popular in its day among a certain class of patron. Essentially, and working with talented draftsmen, the Adam style turns out to have been a kind of souvenir of the Grand Tour, its ornamental citations equivalent to poses struck by wealthy grand tourists in emulation of the Apollo Belvedere. Then there is Hausberg’s linkage of Adam’s interior architectural style (which relied on movement and subtle contrasts of form and plane) to theatre design, drawing a new social context into our understanding of this major architect's work. At the same she enables us to see the familiar interior ensembles at Syon and Osterley with fresh eyes and so come to a fuller appreciation of their aesthetic intention.
Similarly, Marikka Trotter sets the Adams’ castellated style in an intellectual context that ties it to the Scottish enlightenment and the beginnings of geology as an independent discipline. Peter Lindfield’s insightful essay on the late Scottish castles makes us see them not just as simply another variation of ‘Gothick’. They emerge from his analysis as the skilful adaptation of classical fortifications for a Scottish landscape context, in other words an early instance of the eclecticism we associate with Victorian practice. Again, this is new terrain that changes the way we appreciate what we have grown used to thinking of in a certain way.
There is also here a lot of information on the more practical side of late eighteenth-century architecture and in particular the organisation of the Adam office, a complex collaboration across individuals and disciplines that is so often overlooked. Long before the Victorians were building large architectural practices, Adam and William Chambers had developed recognisably modern office practices. Alistair Rowan first explored this topic in detail, and that story is here expanded in several contributions. Conor Lucey’s exploration of Adam’s Headford House in County Meath is particularly illuminating because it demonstrates how a high architectural standard could be achieved without either the main designer or indeed anyone from his office ever visiting a site. This work reminds us that architecture and construction were highly organised businesses in the eighteenth century, and international to some extent.
In that regard, the reader will enjoy understanding how talent and business moved between Scotland and England in this period. This topic, which recurs in other chapters, feels particularly timely in the light of our current debate about Scottish independence and nationalism. Yes, the political changes of that earlier time enabled movement north and south (and obviously also much more widely across the globe), but that makes us easily forget the differences between the two places, and how clever, nimble professionals in any period can overcome not just physical but cultural distance in the pursuit of their vision and of course their livelihood.
Finally, I must mention the very high production quality of this book. This is the standard of publishing that Historic England (the Secretary of State’s statutory adviser on the historic environment) has achieved over the last two decades in a truly impressive and important catalogue of work that in itself deserves praise.
