Carlos A. Menéndez is a production designer and licensed architect. He was born in Havana, Cuba, and received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Menendez studied high-rise building design with Natalie de Blois (renowned architect of the Lever House, NY), and British urban, interior, and landscape design in Oxford, England, with Simon Atkinson and James Coote. Upon graduation, Carlos joined the New York architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, where he worked as an architect on high-rise commercial buildings such as ABC Phase III Corporate Headquarters, the Rizzoli Tower on 5th Avenue in New York, Mellon Bank Tower in Philadelphia and the IBM corporate headquarters at 1225 Avenue Rene-Levesque, Montreal, Canada.
Inspired by the filmmaking process and employing architecture as an aesthetic foundation, Mr. Menendez began designing film sets in the early 1990s for Dick Wolf's television series South Beach (1992). Since then, he has worked as a production designer on Law & Order: Organized Crime (2021-23), The Equalizer (2020), Emergence (2019), NYPD Blue (2019), Asher (2018), Dietland (2018), The Breaks (2017), Madoff (2016) South of Hell (2015), Rob the Mob (2014), Step Up Revolution (2012), Love Wedding Marriage (2011), and Stopping Power (2007) as well as art director and set designer on The Dictator (2012), Larry Crowne (2011), Miami Vice (2006), The Lost City (2005), Any Given Sunday (1999), Analyze This (1999), The Horse Whisperer (1998), Wild Things (1998), Speed 2 (1997), Ransom (1996), and Bad Boys (1995).
In addition to his work on feature films, Carlos has designed numerous award-winning commercials in South America, Europe, and Southeast Asia receiving three nominations from the Art Directors Guild for excellence in production design for Capital One What's in your Wallet, and Macy's 2012 Christmas campaign. In 2012, Mr. Menendez' set design for Step Up Revolution was featured on the cover of Perspective magazine, where he is a frequent contributor. In 2014, Carlos began a collaboration with Pinewood Studios, UK and Entrenamientos Cinematograficos del Caribe to teach art direction in the Dominican Republic and has given a Master Class in production design at The University of Texas at Austin School of Radio Television and Film..
