1728–1792

Interior Designer
Architect

Scottish Upbringing.

Robert Adam, the man who revolutionized English classical design in the course of the eighteenth century, was born into a family of educated Scots in Edinburgh in 1728. Adam's father was also a successful architect, and the young Adam mastered the skills of this trade early in life, joining his father's firm for a time in the years immediately after he finished university. When his father died in 1748, Adam continued the practice with his brother John, and together they undertook many successful commissions throughout Scotland. These included buildings constructed in the then-popular Gothic Revival style as well as forts and other military fortifications intended to quell recent uprisings in the country. With his fortune strengthened, Adam embarked on his Grand Tour in 1754, making a circuit similar to other cultivated British gentlemen of the age. His journey lasted four years, a large portion...