William Adam

(b Kirkcaldy, Fife, 30 Oct 1689; d Edinburgh, 24 June 1748). Architect and landscape designer. He was the leading architect in Scotland during the second quarter of the 18th century and had an extensive practice. An important contractor for the Government, serving from 1730 to his death as Master Mason to the Board of Ordnance for North Britain, he also pursued various business enterprises, including ownership of a brickworks. Apparently self-taught as an architect, he was involved with building country houses from the early 1720s. His early patron, Sir John Clerk, 2nd Baronet of Penicuik, made his own library available to Adam, and in 1727 they made a joint trip to England. Adam developed a style that was influenced by Sir John Vanbrugh, James Gibbs and the English Palladianism of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, and his circle. Thus, Baroque and Palladian forms co-existed in his work, although he handled them in a very personal and inventive way.

Part of the Adam family

See the Abbreviations for further details.

As a Presbyterian Whig, Adam was acceptable both to the aristocracy and to the protagonists of the Scottish Enlightenment in post-1715 Scotland, and quickly established himself as the leading architect in that country. An entrepreneur with many interests, he invested in property in Edinburgh, and purchased a country estate at Blair Crambeth in Kinross, renamed Blair Adam. In 1728 Adam became Clerk and Storekeeper of the Works in Scotland, and from 1730 Mason to the Board of Ordnance in North Britain, which brought him many lucrative building-contracts for forts and other structures after 1745.

As an architect he took his architectural elements from a wide series of precedents, creating an eclectic mix that was lively and often startlingly original. While he imbibed much from Gibbs and Vanbrugh, it also appears he knew something of Continental Baroque architecture from a visit to The Netherlands. Adam endeavoured to publicize his own designs and those of other Scots architects in a book, but the volume languished until 1811 when it was published as Vitruvius Scoticus, consisting of plates without an explanatory text.

Adam was the founder of the famous Adam dynasty, including Robert and James. His most important buildings include Hopetoun House, West Lothian (1723–48), Haddo House, Aberdeenshire (1732–5), the erection of Inveraray Castle, Argyll, to designs by Roger Morris (1745–8), Mavisbank House, Loanhead, Midlothian (1723–7), and Floors Castle, Roxburghshire (1721–6).

Bibliography

• W. Adam (1980)
• Colvin (1995)
• J. Fleming (1962)
• Gifford (1989)
• D. Howard (ed.) (1990)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

William Adam my refer to:

• William Adam (architect) (1689–1748), Scottish architect, mason, and entrepreneur
• William Adam (MP) (1751–1839), Scottish Member of Parliament (MP) in the British Parliament and subsequently a judge
• William Adam (artist) (1846–1931), English landscape artist who worked in California for 33 years
• William Adam (malacologist) (1909–1988), Belgian malacologist
• William Adam (trumpeter) (born 1917), American trumpeter, and Professor Emeritus at Indiana University

See also

• Bill Adam, racing driver
• William Adams

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