Odile Decq

Odile Decq (born 18 July 1955 in Laval, France), is an award-winning French architect, urban planner and academic. She is the founder of the Paris firm, Studio Odile Decq.

Biography

After graduating in architecture in 1978 from École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris-La Villette, Decq received a diploma in urban planning from the Paris Institute of Political Studies in 1979. After running her own agency for a number of years, she created a partnership with Benoît Cornette in 1980, establishing the architecture firm ODBC. The buildings they completed for the Banque Populaire de l’Ouest in Rennes with Peter Rice in 1990 brought them numerous awards and international recognition.

Since then, she has been faithful to her fighting attitude while diversifying and radicalizing her research. Being awarded the Golden Lion of Architecture during the Venice Biennale in 1996 acknowledged her early and unusual career. Other than just a style, an attitude or a process, Odile Decq’s work materializes a complete universe that embraces urban planning, architecture, design and art. Her multidisciplinary approach was recently recognized with the Jane Drew Prize in 2016, and Architizer’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.

Since 1992, Odile Decq has been a professor at the École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris where she was elected head of the Department of Architecture in 2007. She left in 2012 and subsequently built and opened her own school, Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture, in Lyon, France.

Notable Works

• 1990 – Banque populaire de l’Ouest (BPO), administrative and social centers, Rennes, France
• 1996 – Scenography of the French pavilion, Venice Biennale of Architecture
• 1998 – University of Nantes, formation center, library and science building
• 1999 – Viaduct and Operation Center of the A14 motorway, Nanterre, France
• 2001 – Redevelopment and furniture design of the UNESCO Conference Hall, Paris, France
• 2007 – Greenland Pavilion, Shanghai, China
• 2010 – MACRO, Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, Italy (extension-renovation)
• 2011 – PHANTOM, L'Opéra Restaurant of the Opéra Garnier in Paris, France
• 2012 – FRAC Bretagne, Regional Contemporary Art Fund, Rennes, France
• 2014 – GL Events Headquarters in Lyon, France
• 2015 – Pentania, mix of residential buildings and individual houses, Lille, France
• 2015 – Fangshan Tangshan National Geopark Museum, museum of Geology and Anthropology, Nanjing, China
• 2015 – Maison Bernard, Antti Lovag's Bubble Palace, Théoule-sur-Mer, France(renovation)
• 2015 – Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture, school in Lyon, France (renovation-rehabilitation)
• 2015 – Saint-Ange, artist's residency, Seyssins, France
• 2016 – Le CARGO, offices and startup incubator, Paris, France

Awards & Honors

• 1986 – Albums of young architects, with Benoît Cornette
• 1996 – Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale of Architecture, with Benoît Cornette
• 2001 – Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, France
• 2003 – Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honor, France
• 2007 – International Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects, RIBA
• 2013 – Women in Architecture Prize, ARVHA
• 2013 – MAISON&OBJET Designer of the Year
• 2015 – Doctorate honoris causa in architecture, Université Laval
• 2016 – Jane Drew Prize, Architects' Journal
• 2017 – Architizer A+Awards — Lifetime Achievement Award

References