Architect Peter Tolkin is the founding principal of South Pasadena-based Peter Tolkin Architecture. Before participating in a panel on how people reinvent spaces, he talked about Ghana, stinky cheese, and his very first bicycle in the Zócalo green room.
What’s the most important thing you learned when you traveled to Ghana a few years ago to study modern architecture there?
I learned that the history of modernism is not monolithic, that it adapted to multiple cultures and has been transformed through history. It’s not a dead thing. As much as people talk about modernism being an imposition in terms of architecture, like any building, it transforms through time and through use. In Ghana, specifically, climate was a big transformation.
What cheese best embodies you?
I’m not a big cheese eater, but if I’m going to have cheese, I’d like something sharp and stinky.
What Los Angeles building would you love to tear down?
How about we just say L.A. Live?
How do you procrastinate?
I don’t know if it’s a form of procrastination, but I’m a big lover of music. I have a large collection of vinyl records.
Who taught you how to ride a bike, and when did you learn?
I learned to ride a bicycle with training wheels. In West LA. in the mid ’70s, probably. I remember my father buying me a bicycle and being very specific about it—it was a blue Sting-Ray.
How are you different from who you were 10 years ago?
I’m definitely more self-aware. I think I’m clear about what my role can be and what my voice is. And how I understand my intersection and practice of architecture, and how it might differentiate itself from others who are out there. I like to work other people’s narratives and other stories into works of architecture. And to try to engage with other people’s narratives. It’s not a passive way of working.
What’s your favorite plant or flower?
Shiso. It’s that plant where they take the leaf, and they use it in sushi. I like gardening—vegetable plants. It has a lot of great flavor.
If you could be any animal, which would you be?
Probably like an owl, if I could be. I don’t think I’m there yet; I’m not wise enough yet.
What are you keeping in your garage that you should have tossed already?
I live in an apartment building, so I don’t have a garage.
No one should speak to you in the morning until …
Six a.m.