Adolf Meyer (1881–1929) worked only briefly as an architect and head of the Construction Consulting Department at the Frankfurt Building Authority, but his time there was very productive. In addition to numerous buildings, he also designed everyday objects such as furniture, fire alarms, and this hanging lamp. He arranged the different opaque and translucent properties of industrial glass in such a way that the light was optimally guided and diffused. The Berlin factory Zeiss Ikon produced the lamp in two sizes, of which the museum owns the smaller one.

In 1926, Meyer moved to Frankfurt from Weimar, where, as master craftsman at the Bauhaus and Walter Gropius’s right-hand man, he had taught technical drawing and construction technology. In Frankfurt, he designed several industrial buildings, such as the Rebstockgelände radio station, the coking plant and the Ost gasworks, as well as the power station. He also planned structures to regulate the Nidda River: four weirs, new bridges, and the nature swimming pool in Brentanopark. The kindergarten in Sommerhoff Park and the Westend youth center were also based on his designs. After his sudden death in 1929 in a swimming accident on Borkum, the magazine Das Neue Frankfurt dedicated a special issue and an exhibition to him. After that, however, Adolf Meyer fell into oblivion.