A is for Architecture Podcast Robert Adam: Tradition, beauty, authenticity and hybridity.
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Nov 22, 2021 Robert Adam, an acclaimed architect and author, dives into the heart of traditional design and its place in modernity. He challenges the notion of linear progress in architecture, advocating for the value of authenticity and tradition against a backdrop of modernist principles. Adam critiques the removal of ornamentation and discusses how classical design can maintain cultural identity. He also emphasizes the importance of community traditions in architectural practice and exemplifies hybridity in classical styles through global perspectives.
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Questioning Modernist Orthodoxy
- Robert Adam argues modernist architectural education acted like a cult that taught superiority and discouraged questioning.
- He credits living outside student life for prompting him to challenge modernist orthodoxy and explore traditional forms.
Progress Is A Historic Myth
- Adam rejects linear-progress narratives in architectural history, calling them an Enlightenment/Marxist invention.
- He says revivals and constant reference to the past are inevitable because the past is all we have to project the future.
Novelty Ages Fast
- Adam links modernism’s novelty imperative to science-fiction’s novum: both demand the new and soon become familiar.
- He warns chasing perpetual novelty is a false objective because what shocks becomes commonplace quickly.
