Architectural Works
Adam used a wide variety of sources for his designs, often reminiscent of Continental Baroque, and created an inventive personal style of decoration. He drew little from his Scots predecessors Bruce and Smith. Rather, his most important influences were the works of John Vanbrugh and James Gibbs, whose Book of Architecture Adam subscribed to and used as inspiration throughout his career. Several of Adam's houses have been likened to the highly fashionable Palladian designs reproduced in Colen Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicus, although the details owe more to Gibbs and Vanbrugh. His early, unexecuted design for Dun House is interesting, as it appears to show a traditional tall Scottish tower house, complete with spiral stairs within the walls, but externally clad in neo-classical detailing; Adam clearly took some inspiration from the Scottish vernacular.
During his nearly 30-year career as an architect, Adam designed, extended or remodelled over 40 country houses, and undertook numerous public contracts. He also laid out landscape garden schemes, for instance at Newliston and Taymouth Castle.
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“I lay my eternal curse on whomsoever shall now or at any time hereafter make schoolbooks of my works and make me hated as Shakespeare is hated. My plays were not designed as instruments of torture. All the schools that lust after them get this answer, and will never get any other.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)