Professor Robert Adam has been a principal in practice for 45 years and has an international reputation as one of the leading exponents of modern traditional and classical design. Educated at the University of Westminster, he won the Bannister Fletcher Prize and gained a special scholarship to the British School at Rome Scholarship in 1972. From 1977 he was a partner in a Winchester firm. In 2021 he gained a Doctorate in philosophy from Oxford Brookes University.
In 1992, from the original practice, he founded ADAM Architecture, now the largest architecture practice specialising in traditional design in Europe. He has also pioneered contextual urban design on a number of urban extensions and new districts. Other design work includes furniture, with one piece on permanent display in the Victoria and Albert Museum. He has written six books, including the principal textbook on classical architecture and an analysis of how globalisation has affected world architecture, and is a regular contributor of papers, articles and chapters to books, journals and newspapers.
He is a visiting professor of urban design at the University of Strathclyde and has established a summer school of classical architecture in Sweden. In his career he has held many positions on government and other committees, was the honorary secretary of the RIBA, and has founded two charities. He has won numerous prizes including the world’s highest value architectural award, the Richard H. Driehaus Prize, for “the highest ideals of traditional and classical architecture in contemporary society”.