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Robert Adam

Robert Adam

2017 Laureate

Robert Adam, an architect known for his scholarship as well as his practice, has been named the recipient of the 2017 Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame. Adam, the 15th Driehaus Prize laureate, will be awarded the $200,000 prize and a bronze miniature of the Choregic Monument of Lysikrates during a ceremony on March 25 (Saturday) in Chicago.

“Throughout his career, Robert Adam has engaged the critical issues of our time, challenging contemporary attitudes toward architecture and urban design. He has written extensively on the tensions between globalism and regionalism as we shape our built environment,” said Michael Lykoudis, Driehaus Prize jury chair and Francis and Kathleen Rooney Dean of Notre Dame’s School of Architecture. “Sustainability is at the foundation of his work, achieved through urbanism and architecture that is respectful of local climate, culture and building customs.”

“Robert Adam has made seminal and sustained contributions to his discipline by establishing a dialogue between the traditional and modern modes of architecture,” said Richard H. Driehaus, founder, chairman and chief investment officer of Chicago-based Driehaus Capital Management LLC. “He has had tremendous success by experimenting with contemporary materials and methods within the context of local and regional traditions.”

Adam works with clients on a wide range of projects including master planning, public and commercial buildings, extensions to historic buildings and private houses. He is the author of numerous essays as well as books, most notably Classical Architecture: A Complete Handbook (1990), The Globalisation of Modern Architecture (2012) and Classic Columns: 40 years of writing on architecture (2017). Adam is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, an Academician at the Academy of Urbanism, a Senior Fellow of the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment (Heritage) and founder and past-Chair of the College of Chapters at INTBAU (UK). He has been a Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) award judge for nine years, was twice elected by membership to the governing RIBA Council, and from 2001 to 2003 became Honorary Secretary, at which time he founded the Traditional Architecture Group.

Additional Information

Adam received his architectural education at Westminster University and was a Rome Scholar in 1972–73. In 1977 he became a Director of the architectural and urban design practice now known as ADAM Architecture. Adam was active in the founding of the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism (INTBAU), an organization established in 2001 to connect organizations and practitioners interested in traditional architecture and urbanism and bring their ideas to a wider audience.