When Abel Faidy and Julius Floto designed the Meyercord Company building at 5323 W. Lake in the late 30s, the Swiss-born Faidy already had a reputation for creativity and originality in furniture and interior design.
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Tall glass-block windows, rounded corners, and a central bay of glass bricks stretching three stories from sidewalk to roof give the 1938 building some of the hallmarks of art moderne, but as Chicago cultural historian Tim Samuelson says, “There’s nothing quite like it…really it has a style and flair that is all its own.”
A highly stylized telephone stand of ebonized walnut-and-maple marquetry, made that same year, is housed at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. For Meyercord’s offices Faidy designed boxy steel desks contrasting with curved steel-and-leather chairs, furnishings which now are gone.
