The Jenney Myth: How the Home Insurance Building Was Declared the “World’s First Skyscraper”
Published online on October 31, 2025
Abstract
Journal of Urban History, Ahead of Print.
It is now well established among architectural and engineering historians that William Le Baron Jenney did not invent the skyscraper and that the Home Insurance Building (HIB), completed in 1885 in Chicago, was not the first one. Nonetheless, the idea of ...
It is now well established among architectural and engineering historians that William Le Baron Jenney did not invent the skyscraper and that the Home Insurance Building (HIB), completed in 1885 in Chicago, was not the first one. Nonetheless, the idea of ...