Occupation and Position.

Architect and Principal of Rachel Allen Architecture

What neighborhood do you closely identify with? What makes it so unique to you?

Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles. It’s genuinely diverse and in so many ways: race, class, age, gardening skills. It feels like a small town in the big city, a pocket of sincerity in a sea of urban cynicism. It reminds me of the San Francisco of the 1970s in which I grew up, and which is long, long gone now. Plus it has a really breathtaking branch of the public library on Workman Street which is a single curving room. One of the Carnegie Libraries, it was funded by him in 1916, and modelled on the Villa Papa Guilia in Rome.

What’s the greatest item that you’ve dug up at a local garage sale? How much did it cost?

I bought a rooster weathervane a few months ago for my garden. I think it was 75 cents. We’re going to spray paint it bright red.

If you could interview one unsung hero, who would it be? Why?

This is a really hard one for me because most of my creative heroes have been pretty well recognized, and I have so many of them. Mary Shelley? Dorothy Parker? Patti Smith? And then there’s that great Barbara Krueger piece which says, “We don’t need another hero.” So at the end of the day I have to pick my friend Julie Deamer, founding director of Outpost for Contemporary Art in Highland Park (www.outpost-art.org). Julie is totally committed and as far as I can tell completely tireless in her dedication to supporting and widening awareness of truly contemporary artists, the ones on the ground, the stuff that hasn’t been bought up and commodified, at least not yet. She travels far and wide, from Eastern Europe to South America, in order to search them out, spends hours of her time raising money just in order to give it away, and has put her life on the line for this cause on a daily basis. She’s valiant, modest and diplomatic, all qualities I admire and hope will rub off onto me when we spend time together.

What’s your favorite youtube video?

Gilda Radner doing Nadia Comaneci. It’s not actually all that funny, it’s just that I’m fascinated with Gilda. There’s this incredible story about a going-away party her friends threw her soon before she died. She was so weak she had to be carried around. So she was brought up to each of them in turn, and each one tried to make her laugh the hardest.

Where are your favorite local spots to eat?

My all-time favorite is the Eastside Market and Italian Deli on Alpine. The family that runs it is from the same region as my husband and his family and there are folk paintings of their hometown on the walls. They have an eggplant parmigiana sandwich that just destroys me, I have to slow myself down when I eat it. I also eat at Via Cafe in Chinatown much too often, Diane there is a culinary diamond-in-the-rough. Also Guelaguetza, that Oaxachan place, Los Reyes on North Broadway for licuados, and I just had some pretty amazing dim sum at Empress Pavilion for lunch.

What are your favorite local nightlife scenes?

I don’t really do nightlife anymore. I’m getting older and I tire easily. Instead I like my friends’ houses for dinner parties or barbeques, sometimes culminating in charades.

What songs are at the top of your playlist at this very moment?

My friends will all tell you I’m pretty much out to lunch when it comes to music. I don’t have a playlist. I listen to what other people play for me and I try to surround myself with people who are kind enough to do that. And while I do have an .mp3 player, right now it’s filled with the first third of War and Peace, which I downloaded from the Los Angeles Public Library’s website. I’m not kidding. It’s really good, by the way, not boring at all.

What new projects you are building on right now?

Peace Yoga, a new studio and art gallery in one of the historic buildings downtown. Collaborations with artists, assisting them in building stuff legally when that gets too complicated for them to figure out by themselves. Several houses, including one on a hill in Echo Park and one on the beach in Carpinteria. Getting ready to start work on a huge studio building for a photographer, and another smaller one for a filmmaker. We keep busy but not too busy, as this is California summer after all and we need to sit outside in the evenings and go to the beach as often as we can.

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www.rachelallen.net