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Architect Robert Adam: A Place at the Table

 

WTTW host Geoffrey Baer (left) with Architect Robert Adam.

WTTW host Geoffrey Baer (left) with architect Robert Adam.

Photo Credit: Tiddy Maitland-Titterton.

Many Americans assume Britain is a country that reveres traditional architecture. Images of grand country homes, royal palaces and quaint rural villages spring readily to mind. But in fact over the past half century or more contemporary British culture has been indifferent to these iconic snapshots of national identity.

Architect Robert Adam wanted to change all that. Adam has devoted his life and career to persuading Britain’s architectural establishment to recognize the importance of the traditional in modern British architectural practice. Through a persuasive personal style, a powerful wit, and a talent for design, the Winchester-based architect has made a place at the table for architecture that respects and extends the vocabulary of classical and traditional buildings in today’s built environment.

Adam’s Sackler Library at Oxford University Adam’s Sackler Library at Oxford University.
Photo Credit: ADAM Architecture

In A Place at the Table: Architect Robert Adam, host Geoffrey Baer introduces us to Adam's work, philosophy, and life. Meet Adam's colleagues, clients, and critics and tour some of his magisterial buildings in Britain. Beginning with his rebellion against schooling that solely espoused modernism and his awakening to classical architecture in Rome, through his subsequent return to England and success as a journalist and architect, discover a man at once contrarian and confident, yet utterly likable and warm.