Jenney, William Le Baron (1832–1907). American architect. Unusually he studied (1853–6) at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Paris, where empirical and pragmatic approaches to design problems were stressed rether than the art of design (emphasized at the École des Beaux-Arts). After the American Civil War he established his practice in Chicago, IL, in 1868, and began to consider the design of office buildings, making the structures more economical and efficient, and enlarging the fenestration. The success of his Portland Block (1872—destroyed) drew young architects to his office (including Burnham, Holabird, Martin Roche (1853–1927), and Sullivan). His innovative first Leiter Building (1879—destroyed) had an internal skeleton of iron, with slender iron columns embedded in the exterior wall (which exposed something of the frame behind), and in the Home Insurance Building (1883–5—destroyed 1931) columns were of cast and wrought iron, girders and floor-beams were of wrought iron up to the sixth floor, and girders were of steel above that, apparently the first major use of structural steel in a building (as opposed to a bridge or other work of pure engineering). With the engineer Louis E. Ritter (1864–1934) he took matters further in the Manhattan Building, 431 S. Dearborn Street (1889–90), using an iron-and-steel frame for the whole building, with diagonal wind-bracing. Then, with the Sears, Roebuck, & Company Store, State and Van Buren Streets (1889–81), he expressed the iron and steel frame behind the granite-clad exterior. In 1891 Jenney went into partnership with William B. Mundie (1863–1939), and the firm designed the Ludington Building (1891—probably its most elegant work), the Montgomery Ward Store (1891–2—destroyed), the Morton Building (1896), and the Chicago Garment Center (1904–5). Jenney's firm created proto-skyscrapers, and its work was an important step in the evolution of constructional principles leading to the achievements of the Chicago School, Jenny published important papers on the problems of designing tall buildings.

Bibliography

Condit (1952, 1964, 1968);
Dictionary of American Biography (1943);
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, xxix/1 (Mar. 1970), 40–7;
Mujica (1929);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
Randall (1949);
Turak (1968);
Jane Turner (1968);
Zukowsky (ed.) (1987)