William Le Baron Jenney

William Le Baron Jenney (1832-1907), American architect and engineer, whose innovative construction methods earned him the title father of the skyscraper. After completing his architectural and engineering education in Paris, Jenney returned to the U.S. and served as an engineer in the Union army during the American Civil War. After the war Jenney settled in Chicago, where he opened his own architectural office. In later years many members of the Chicago School served their architectural apprenticeships on his staff, including Louis Sullivan and Daniel Burnham. Jenney's great contribution to architecture was his pioneering use of metal-frame construction for large buildings, first used in his Home Insurance Company Building (1885, demolished 1931) in Chicago. Cast-iron columns, encased in masonry, were used to support the steel beams bearing floor weights. The outside walls, freed from their load-bearing function, were filled with windows. Jenny's revolutionary method of building, termed curtain-wall construction, remains basic for the design of tall buildings, now known as skyscrapers.