Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/641424
212 CULTURED That magic is in your blood, too. I always breathed architecture. When I was a kid, I lived in a modern and futuristic house designed by my father and very similar to Villa Arpel by Jacques Tati. It was filled with space-age technology but nothing worked as it should. Take the garage door, which opened automatically by radio. It was spectacular, but when the number 51 trolley passed in front of the house, it would emit a certain frequency and completely open the house—often in the middle of the night. Did your discovery of filmmaking feel like an extension or disavowal of the family profession? My father died when I was eight years old, although stories of him impregnated my soul. At 16, I fell in love with the movies. I would cut class to go. One day I saw Bergman's The Silence, which moved me very much—it related to my childhood and was filled with anxieties and haunting images. This was an epiphany: I went in unprepared and left with a life lesson. Three years later I began my studies at university, and there was an ever-present doubt whether I should follow movies or architecture. You have said that the failure of your 1988 film, Fire and Passion, pushed you toward architecture. I accomplished one of my biggest dreams in making Fire and Passion with Isay Weinfeld. But the movie was a disaster at the box office and with the critics. After a spectacular run of short movies that won dozens of awards, making a feature film was a completely different story—we didn't have the experience. After the letdown, without any money, I once again began my architectural life, but this time exerting great effort. Despite the trauma, I loved what happened; it introduced a thought process that I could incorporate into architecture, from the elongated proportions of a wide screen to the importance of light. I also always create the people who will live in the space: what their backgrounds are and how they will walk around the project and feel its proportions. Besides approaching building design cinematically, MK27 films its finished projects—often poking fun at the stereotypes of Modernism and the self- serious architect. In 2012, I returned to filmmaking to represent Brazil at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Since then we have made six short films about our projects, which we were able to finish in a few days. It's different from the feature film that took six months of our lives and soul. I enjoyed this experience and was able to make peace with filmmaking. Does the architecture profession not focus enough on interdisciplinary exploration? You could see it like that. What strikes me most is the lack of simplicity, as if the constant search for innovation means sacrificing important lessons from our past. How does society figure into your practice? Social conscience plays a deeper role, and is reflected in my attempt to build stronger relationships and empathy among people, more than applying any one compositional principle to our work. As Niemeyer said, life is more important than architecture. PHOTO BY ©FERNANDO GUERRA After completing Casa P, Kogan, who is also a filmmaker, produced Modern Living, inspired by a Bauhaus film by architect Richard Paulick.