Farooq Ameen is the Founding Principal at City Design Studio, an architecture and urban design practice with current projects in the US and Asia. He is a member of the Board of Directors at the A+D Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles and has lectured widely including the Bauhaus, Harvard and Columbia. Ameen has held academic appointments at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (Los Angeles / Lugano), Woodbury University and Calpoly and is the author of numerous publications including “The South Asian Paradigm”, “deCoding Asian Urbanism” and “50 Under 50 :Innovators of the 21st Century”.

Sergei Tchoban is managing partner of Tchoban Voss Architects with offices in Berlin, Dresden, and Hamburg, co-founder of SPEECH architectural office in Moscow, Russia and founder of the Tchoban Foundation Museum for Architectural Drawing in Berlin. A number of his buildings, including, the Federation Tower in Moscow, Benois House in St. Petersburg, the Jewish Cultural Center and Synagogue Chabad Lubavitch, NHow hotel, Living Levels and Museum for Architectural Drawing in Berlin have become world-renowned attractions. His work has been recognized, not only as an architect, but also as a curator, lecturer and a passionate draftsman.

Peter Tokofsky is the senior public program specialist at the Getty Museum, where he organizes the public speaker series, and an adjunct professor of German at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is director of UCLA’s summer travel-study program to Austria and Germany which introduces students to art and cultural history in Berlin, Munich, and Vienna. He is a native of Los Angeles and contributes to various educational and arts programs in the city.