Nicole Huber came to Los Angeles by way of Berlin. The German-born architect and professor closely engaged with the ongoing debates in newly united Berlin over how best to build a city and reconstruct a civic identity. Berliners looked to Paris for what to do, and looked to America for what not to do, she joked at the Autry National Center. “In the search for the paradigmatic European city, there was an antidote to that city, the quintessential American city, namely Los Angeles,” she said. Read more about Huber below.

Q. What do you wake up to?
A. That kind of floating feeling, where you’re not yet in the reality of the day, confronted with facts and problems that come up, but in a creative moment of emergence.

Q. What do you find beautiful?
A. Dramatic landscapes, like deserts or mountainscapes.

Q. How would you describe yourself in five words or fewer?
A. Positive, optimistic, creative.

Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A. I think I wanted to become a physician, but of course that’s what my parents were.

Q. What is your favorite cocktail?
A. Gin and tonic.

Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?
A. Saint-Martin, Switzerland.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?
A. Same thing.

Q. What is your favorite holiday and why?
A. Christmas, because it brings everybody together, and it also brings all of the problems and little explosions out.

Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?
A. Hikes in the mountains, as well as playing in the garden. Everyday life.

Q. What is your most prized material possession?
A. My computer. It’s not even mine, it’s the school’s.

Q. What promise do you make to yourself that you break the most often?
A. To get more sleep and drink less coffee.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead that you’d most love to have a beer with?
A. Georg Simmel [A German sociologist.]

To read more about Huber’s panel on Los Angeles vs. Las Vegas, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.