Brazilian architect Marcio Kogan of Studio MK27 has produced a rather effective way to get people to admire his latest São Paulo project. Pulling techniques from his prior career directing movies, Kogan created a short film starring his client's cat as a ploy to promote his Toblerone House, which he completed in August. It's actually quite clever, if a tad exploitive of lay people's adoration for squashy-faced felines. See, tours of lustrous modern homes are great. But tours of modern homes through the eyes of an adorable cat? Now that's really something.
The project, characterized by three concrete slabs separated by glass, is a pleasing mix of heavy and light and opaque and transparent, juxtapositions Kogan slyly introduces as his star feline slinks across the villa's gray planes, brushes along its timber walls, and peeks its face over the second-story slabs. Studio MK27's Suzana Glogowski recently told Dezeen that the firm's videos—including the ones it debuted at the Venice Biennale this summer—are meant to show beautiful architecture in its day-to-day context, thus forcing it, in a way, to take a part in the chorus. It's good thing that was the plan all along, because the tour guide in this particular video, below, is definitely absorbing most of the spotlight. As if a cat would accept a background role, anyway. Watch the video, right this way.
· Movie: Toblerone House by Studio MK27 through the eyes of a cat [Dezeen]
· Toblerone House by Studio MK27 through the eyes of a cat [Vimeo]