Then-President William Howard Taft proposed a new Supreme Court building in 1912. He was appointed Chief Justice in 1921. In 1929, Chief Justice Taft argued successfully for the Court to have its own headquarters to distance itself from Congress as an independent branch of government; he died the following year, and thus did not see it built. The court was finally designed by Cass Gilbert, who was a well-known architect and friend to Taft, and created many other structures in the United States. The building would be completed by his son Cass Gilbert Jr., following the elder Gilbert's death in 1934.