Preface

Harris, Eileen

I don't have an account

Create an account to save content, highlights, and notes to your personal bookshelf.

If you do not have access to the eBook content on the A&AePortal via an institutional subscription, you can purchase an individual subscription from your account. Learn more about subscriptions.

Purchase a subscription

Save Cite Share

Free

Preface

Eileen Harris

The Genius of Robert Adam: His Interiors

~Robert Adam’s name is so well known that it might be thought that nothing more need be written about him, or conversely that everything will be contained in my book. Both ideas are far from the truth and should be buried without delay.

Author

Eileen Harris

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22367

Preface

Robert Adam’s name is so well known that it might be thought that nothing more need be written about him, or conversely that everything will be contained in my book. Both ideas are far from the truth and should be buried without delay.

Interiors were Adam’s great achievement, his claim to fame. Yet architectural historians have on the whole shied away from his decorative work, fearing, it seems, that focus on this subject detracts from, and may even obscure, his importance as an architect. Quite the contrary; it enlarges it. The synthesis of architecture, planning and decoration is at the heart of Adam’s achievement and only by considering these elements together and in depth can the breadth of his genius be properly appreciated.

The bulk of Adam’s work was in pre-existing houses. In order to know exactly what he did and why, how much of his work was determined by circumstances and how much was left to invention, it is essential to set the scene at the time of his arrival: to identify the problems which he set out to rectify. It is equally important to know how much of what we see today has been affected by later alterations and renovations; by Adam-Revival additions and even by so-called accurate restorations undertaken during the past twenty-five years.

Though we are extremely fortunate in having a large corpus of drawings from the Adam office at the Soane Museum, they can be misleading, especially if considered in isolation. Close study of archival sources, other related drawings and above all the houses themselves often provided more accurate dates and identifications. The task was enormous and a great deal remains to be done.

I have concentrated on Adam’s most complete and accomplished interiors. They are but a fraction of his total œuvre. To have attempted to submit all his interiors to the same detailed examination would not have been possible in my lifetime, nor would it have significantly altered the overall picture. The houses are arranged as nearly as possible in chronological order, broken on occasion in order to group the several commissions by a single patron together.

I hope that my efforts will open the way to a better understanding of the genius of Robert Adam.

Previous chapter Next chapter

Book details

BOOKThe Genius of Robert Adam: His Interiors

Eileen Harris

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00304

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22365

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 Adam’s achievement, as Eileen Harris shows in this enlightening book. She considers in detail the interaction of each of these elements in nineteen of Adam’s most accomplished interior projects, including some of the most famous British country houses and London town houses.

Most of 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. Harris has mined archival sources, including the large collection of drawings from the Adam office at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, and fully examined the houses themselves to discover exactly what 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, Harris uncovers the full extent of Adam’s prodigious achievements.

*This eBook is available exclusively on the A&AePortal.*

Author

Eileen Harris

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

Print publication date November 2001 (out of print)

Print ISBN 9780300081299

EISBN 9780300267518

Illustrations 506

Print Status out of print

Publisher (out of print)

WorldCat

Google Books

Base text size -

Chapter images ()