Robert Adam (b 1948) is one of a rare breed of architects who actually thinks and writes about his work and its context. He leaves a legacy that tells us about the ideas underpinning his designed and realised buildings. Here, he presents a selection of his writings, taken from an output of some forty years, encapsulating thoughts, researches and cogently expressed observations concerning how people live with, and use, the built environment. He founded and is actively involved in TAG (Traditional Architecture Group), INTBAU (International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism) and Europe’s largest traditional architectural practice, ADAM Architecture (with his five partners), based in Winchester, with a London office in Queen Square.

Adam’s themes are many, but he is concerned with the practice of real architecture, rather than problematical bling, ludicrously labelled ‘iconic’ by those who ought to know better. His practice has been responsible for numerous private houses, commercial buildings, urban extensions and new settlements (with the design of a great many new dwellings), and its work has drawn upon a huge reservoir of knowledge that has been deliberately submerged by the cult of Modernism. That cult demanded a tabula rasa and the jettisoning of all historical references, even an entire architectural language, in favour of something so poverty-stricken in terms of resonance, symbol and meaning that the only people interested in promoting it were Modernist architects themselves. The public was excluded because the terms used and the language spoken in any discussion of it were incomprehensible to those outside the tiny compound. Modernist architecture evolved attitudes that were self-referential, claiming to possess special knowledge and even a superior morality. Yet the public, surrounded by architecture and the work of architects, should not be excluded from debate or judgement, and indeed has far more right, perhaps the only right, to criticise what architects produce. Architecture is far too important to be discussed in arcane debates among architects. It affects everyone who perambulates in any town or city, ventures into a public building, visits a place of worship (out of curiosity, or in order to take part, or to pray, or just to sit and absorb the atmosphere), travels via an airport or a railway station, or attends a place of learning. Adam puts human beings first, rather than style or mere architectural fads that quickly date.

Adam considers tradition, Classicism, the creation of space and place, housing, heritage, planning, problems of the environment and globalisation. His love for his subject glows through the pages of this handsome publication. He makes a very strong case that tradition and modernity can co-exist – and, indeed, why should they be regarded as separate creatures? He has, after all, embraced up-to-date technology in many of his buildings, combining this with an architecture that draws on a huge reservoir of themes and motifs. It is those who have denounced Adam for fighting wars that are over who are the ones who are out-of-date, bogged down in their ancient slogans and manifest failures of a non-architecture, exemplars of which have scarcely lasted one generation and are detested by everybody except Modernists.

Nevertheless, Adam is a real modern architect; one who has not thrown out thousands of years of architectural development in favour of a fashion that has proved to be a hugely wasteful phenomenon, and which has caused enormous damage. Architects once could produce order out of chaos: during the twentieth century, and now into the twenty-first, the evidence is that those adhering to the Modern Movement did the opposite, killing off the urban organisms through their arrogant, doctrinaire tinkering. Adam realised early in his career that the architectural profession was notoriously inward-looking, and in practice intellectual stimulation was in short supply. He, therefore, read avidly, studied philosophy and history, and began to publish thoughtful articles on wide-ranging topics. His aim has been to bring order back into a world that has been monopolised by what Scruton calls the ‘uglifiers’ (p ix).

This is a volume through which Adam’s deep humanity runs like a thread. He also believes, as Modernism fragments – not least because it has obviously failed to produce the Utopia it promised, but has delivered Dystopia instead (much of which is falling down or has to be demolished because it is uninhabitable) – that architecture will survive, renewed, reformed and with something of the intellectual content it once had in antiquity and during the Renaissance, for example. It is a book with contents that deserve to be read, pondered and absorbed by those interested in understanding the themes behind the designed and realised buildings of contemporary architects who explore the rich inheritance of architectural languages while embracing modern demands and technology. Architectural students especially should take note. Lavishly illustrated, it is also very beautiful in parts, although some photographs should have been replaced with exemplars less vertically distorted (the horror on p 161, showing Elizabeth House, Waterloo, by the infamous John Poulson, is one example, and The Clothworkers’ Hall in the City of London on p 23 is another).

One of Adam’s best schemes is the Sackler Library in Oxford (shown on the front of the wrapper), where the Greek Doric Order is used, and the Haverfield Wing has a magnificent (and thoughtful) frieze by the great Alexander Stoddart (b 1959), and there are other fine things in this richly rewarding book, not least the list of Adam publications from 1975 (pp 245–56). An excellent index improves the usability of this tome. All in all, then, this is a welcome, handsome and interesting publication; a record of the achievements of a remarkable man.