The Genius of Robert Adam

Interiors

Robert Adam was one of the greatest British architects of the later eighteenth century. So widespread was his influence as a decorator and furniture designer that his name has become a household word. But it is the synthesis of architecture, planning, and decoration that stands at the heart of Robert Adam's achievement, as Eileen Harris shows in this elegantly illustrated book.

Interior projects

Eileen Harris considers in detail the interaction of each of these elements in nineteen of Robert Adam's most accomplished interior projects, including some of the most famous British country houses and London town houses. Most of Robert Adam's enormous body of work was in preexisting houses; the challenges of remodeling stimulated his inventive imagination, and he became a master at turning awkward situations to advantage.

Large collection of drawings

Eileen Harris has mined archival sources, including the large collection of drawings from the Robert Adam office at Sir John Soane's Museum in London, and fully examined the houses themselves to discover exactly what Robert Adam did in each project and why. In her detailed discussions of the planning, decoration, ceilings, carpets, chimney pieces, and furniture of such interiors as those at Kedleston, Syon House, Osterley Park, Newby Hall, Culzean Castle, and Home and Lansdowne Houses in London, Eileen Harris uncovers the full extent of Robert Adam's prodigious achievements.

Eileen Harris

Eileen Harris is an architectural historian who has published extensively on Robert Adam. Eileen Harris is Honorary Librarian and Consultant to the Adam Project at Sir John Soane's Museum, London.

Robert Adam Interiors

The Genius of Robert Adam: His Interiors by Eileen Harris
Publisher: Yale Univ Press, 2001
ISBN: 0300081294

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