At the heart of Larry Booth’s 50+ year architectural career is the belief that spirited, meaningful, and useful buildings can be realized through an organized and open creative process. As Design Principal at Booth Hansen, which he founded in 1980, he’s in charge of the conceptual development of every project, taking all of these aspects into consideration.
Originally from LaGrange, Illinois, Booth acquainted himself with Chicago?s architecture early on when accompanying his father, a patent attorney, to his office in The Rookery, a great building of the old Chicago School with an inspiring atrium and spiral staircase. Perhaps influenced by his father’s sketches, design was a natural fit for Booth, who had a knack for building things, typically wood furniture, but occasionally something more sculptural in nature. When it came time to choose a course of study, Booth wasn’t sure, eventually deciding upon Stanford University. Larry Booth \ Photo: Nathan Kirkman
“Architecture students were in the College of Arts and Sciences, where I got a liberal education while I also learned about practical design,” says Booth. “My aesthetic sense was sharpened in studio classes where I drew imagined buildings and could also experiment with sculpture. In both architecture and art, I developed an interest in relationships of geometric form.”
The engineering courses Booth completed while in school, mainly to placate his father who championed tech...