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(3) Robert Adam

(b Kirkcaldy, Fife, 3 July 1728; d London, 3 March 1792). Architect and designer, son of (1) William Adam. He and his rival William Chambers were the leading British architects in the second half of the 18th century. After training under his father, he embarked on a Grand Tour in 1754; this ended early in 1758 when he settled in London rather than Edinburgh. There he established a practice that was transformed into a partnership with his younger brother James after the latter’s return in 1763 from his own Grand Tour. By then, however, the Adam style was formed, and Robert remained the partnership’s driving force and principal designer until his death. He not only developed a distinctive and highly influential style but further refined it through his large number of commissions, earning fame and a certain amount of fortune along the way. Eminently successful, he left an indelible stamp on British architecture and interior decoration and on international Neo-classicism.

Part of the Adam (ii) family

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  Reproduced by kind permission of Macmillan Publishers Limited, publishers of The Grove Dictionary of Art.
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