From Devon to Derbyshire and Dumfriesshire, from London to Bath and Edinburgh, the elegant architectural genius of Robert Adam can be seen all over Scotland and England. It is not an exaggeration to say that he entirely changed the course of architecture in this country. His style, his attention to the smallest detail, his sensitive use of colour, have informed what we mean by ‘Country House Style’ to this day. But there is far more to his genius than his skill in ‘decoration’. This course examines ways in which Adam can be seen as, not only a master interior designer, but as a true holistic architect, an artist, adapting his visions to the site and then manipulating space, light, and relationships between line and colour to affect the emotional responses of individuals as they move from room to room.
Sir Christopher Wren, as we saw from our recent celebratory course, approached architecture via astronomy and mathematics. Robert Adam, born five years after the death of Wren into the family of the most distinguished Scottish Palladian architect William Adam, was a product of the Edinburgh Enlightenment: the world of Adam Smith the economist, of David Hume the philosopher, of James Hutton the geologist, and of Allan Ramsay the painter. Adam’s educational background, unlike that of many of his contemporary architects, was steeped in classical studies. From the age of eight on, his classes at the Royal High School Edinburgh were conducted in Latin.
It only takes a visit to Syon House (above), just outside London, to see how Adam was a thinking architect of the first order, working with dimensions, proportions, rhyming of lines in rooms and rapid shifts of colour as you move through the building, each room a variation in atmosphere. His interiors have a fluid relationship to one another as well as a subtle distinction from one another. His work expresses a harmonious integrity in which structure, material, and colour come together in a balanced aesthetic and purpose.
Christopher Wren never visited Italy and had to acquire all his Italian influences second-hand from prints. This course looks at what happened when an ambitious genius, son of a leading Scottish architect of the early 18c, not only actually lived in Rome, but was inspired to produce a remarkable illustrated book on the palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Split on the Croatian coast.
His most interesting of all Grand Tours, which lasted four years, produced some of the most engaging and amusing letters home by any architect, giving us an insight into the bizarre world of the Grand Tour. Adam was no aristocratic slouch, drinking and whoring his way round Rome like many English and Scottish milords at the time. Motivated by his drawing teacher Clerisseau, he obsessively observed and drew classical architecture. But that did not stop him sending back amusing stories of his observations of his fellow tourists.
What happened when he came back to the United Kingdom in 1758 and needed to design buildings to appeal to those landowning milords back from the Grand Tour? He had advantages: not only his intellectual upbringing and classical education but the confidence of an intense engagement with actual buildings in Italy and Dalmatia. He returned to Britain to huge demand from wealthy landowners anxious to update their country houses. It’s the updating that is significant as rarely did Adam design a house from scratch. Instead, with an inspired pragmatism which produced works of dramatic genius, he adapted what he came upon, be it an Elizabethan house as at Syon or Osterley, or a Palladian house as at Kedleston or Nostell Priory. He could provide a castle above the foaming sea as at Culzean, a screen for the Admiralty in Whitehall, a bridge at Pulteney in Bath, or a library at Kenwood. His style was not limited to the Neoclassical: he could open out the arms of a staircase in a manner of the Baroque architect Bernini, or borrow a design for a chimneypiece from the extravagantly Gothic tomb of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey.
He is the archetypal British architect, delighted by the eclectic, bored by the prescriptive. Adam’s work was never classically pedestrian: it was ever varied, ever inventive, ever exciting. Indeed, his body of work expressed a rare optimism in a field that too often championed a sterile formalism. Please join us for a visual tour through a most serenely balanced and colourful expression of the art of interior architecture.
Booking Information:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
This online course via Zoom has been developed by Louise Friend and Nicholas Friend. It will be presented by Nicholas Friend, Co-Founder of Inscape. It is held on Thursdays, beginning on Thursday 22 February 2024 at 5 pm and ending on Thursday 25 April 2024 at 5 pm. Please note the time of 5 pm: Nicholas will be lecturing from California (at 9 am his time) for the duration of this course.
You may choose to attend individual sessions or all ten. If you book for the course but cannot manage a particular date, then be assured we will be sending recordings of sessions to all participants. Each session meets from 15 minutes before the advertised time of the lecture, and each lasts roughly one hour with 15 minutes discussion.
Cost: £450 members or £550 non-members for the course of 10 sessions or £45 members or £55 non-members per individual session. All sessions are limited to 21 participants to permit an after-lecture discussion session.
Due to the coronavirus cheques are not a viable option at this time. Instead, please make your payment to Friend&Friend Ltd by bank transfer to our account with Metrobank, bank sort code 23-05-80, account number 13291721 or via PayPal to nicholas@inscapetours.co.uk, or credit/debit card by phone to Henrietta on 07940 719397. She is available Tuesdays 10-12 and 2-5 pm or Thursdays 10-12 and 2-5 pm. Do get in touch if you would like extra support learning how to use Zoom.
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