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MÀRCIO KOGAN
Fifty years have passed, but Màrcio Kogan
(São Paulo, 1952) remembers perfectly how
his father would take him along to his jobs.
He was an architect and engineer linked to
the modernist movement that he so admired.
‘He died when I was eight years old,” Kogan
recounts, “but I already had architecture in
my heart.” And we know, as Malraux wrote,
“All seeds begin by rotting, but some of
them germinate.” And this is what happened
in Kogan’s case with architecture. We spoke
with him in one of his greatest works, which
was his third project in Madrid for the devel-
oper Caledonian. / Han pasado cincuenta
años de aquellas visitas, pero Màrcio Kogan
(São Paulo, 1952) recuerda perfectamente
cómo su padre, Aron Kogan, arquitecto
e ingeniero ligado al movimiento moder-
nista que tanto ha admirado, le llevaba con
él a sus obras. “Murió cuando tenía ocho
años –cuenta–, pero yo tenía ya la arqui-
tectura en el corazón”. Y ya se sabe, como
escribió Malraux, las semillas se pudren al
principio, pero algunas acaban germinando.
Eso sucedió, en su caso, con la arquitectura.
Hablamos con él en una de sus grandes
obras: su tercer proyecto para la promotora
Caledonian en Madrid.
You wanted to be an architect since you
were a child, but we’ve heard that film
crossed your path and almost altered the
course of your career. Desde niño quiso
ser arquitecto, pero tenemos entendido
que el cine se cruzó en su camino y casi
le desvía de la vocación.
I almost studied at Mackenzie Presbyte-
rian University’s School of Architecture and
Urbanism in São Paulo, but I fell in love
with cinema and I bounced between the
two for years. I made more than a dozen
shorts with a classmate from college who
would become—and still is—my partner in the
studio, Isay Weinfeld. We won several inter-
national awards. One of them in Spain, at the
Huelva Latin American Film Festival. Then, I
“Ever since I was a child,
architecture has been in my heart”
“desde niño la arquitectura SIEMPRE
HA ESTADO en MI corazón”
began to question which field to pursue. In
1988, Isay and I co-produced and co-directed
a fictional feature-length, Fogo e pãixao (Fire
and Passion). Although it enjoyed certain
success in Brazil, we lost a ton of money on
it. It was then that I decided to concentrate
on architecture, and I went back to the studio
after not having stepped foot inside for a
year and a half. / ¡Casi! Estudié en la Escuela
de Arquitectura y Urbanismo de la Univer-
sidad Presbiteriana Mackenzie de São Paulo,
pero me enamoré del cine y durante años
compaginé ambas cosas. Hice más de una
docena de cortometrajes con un compañero
de la facultad que luego sería –y todavía lo
es– mi socio en el estudio, Isay Weinfield.
Ganamos varios premios internacionales
–uno de ellos en España, en el Festival de
Cine Iberoamericano de Huelva–, y llegué a
dudar por qué carrera decantarme. En 1988,
coproduje y codirigí con Isay un largome-
traje de ficción, “Fogo e pãixao”. Aunque
tuvo cierto éxito en Brasil, nos hizo perder
muchísimo dinero. Fue entonces cuando
decidí centrarme en la arquitectura y volví al
estudio, después de año y medio sin pisarlo.
What did you learn from that venture?
¿Qué aprendió de aquella aventura?
There are many aspects of film that I have
used in architecture. Proportion, for example,
RepoRt by / RepoRtaje poR joRGe L.UZaL
pHotGRapHy by / FotoGRaFÍa poR FRaN paReNte & VIeW pICtUReS
