French Architect Odile Decq, has seen her notoriety and the success of her firm founded in 1978 grow ever more. Her work is a complete universe, in which architecture, design, art and urbanism come together, challenge each other, respond to each other. Her direct style, her assertive personality are matched by her architecture with bold geometries and her innovative creations in all the areas in which her expresses.
International recognition came very early, in 1990, on the occasion of her first major commission: Banque Populaire de l’Ouest in Rennes. The 10 national and international prizes as well as the publications who accompanied the construction of this building, at the time, underlined the birth of a new hope stemming from the punk revolt challenging dusty conventions. Among the architectural achievements of this pioneering and passionate woman, let us mention the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome (MACRO), the headquarters of GL Events in Lyon, the FRAC Bretagne in Rennes, the Archaeological Museum of Tangshan in China, the “Cargo”, a start-up incubator in Paris, “Le Twist”, an office building in Paris, very singular private houses, that she likens to works of art, and her latest project, a residential tower in Barcelona “Antares”. More than 20 years ago, she entered the field of design by creating a series of furniture, armchairs and tables for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris with the editor Domeau & Peres. Since then, each of her projects has been the subject of new creations, such as new lamps developed in the Luceplan catalog.
She has always been passionate about and a collector of contemporary art, and in 2007 she took the plunge into a work of art during her first exhibition at the Polaris gallery in Paris. She then seeks to reinvest her own research in architecture in art and gradually moves away from it while sometimes keeping a link. Thus, the portfolios of serigraphs produced for the editor Bernard Chauveau on the occasion of the realization of the Macro, the Frac Bretagne or the restaurant Phantom at the Opéra Garnier are graphic deconstructions of the elements of the projects; the same is true of the series of ALOD plates made in 2016.
After creating the Oniris gallery stand for Art Paris in 2010, she exhibited at their Gallery in 2017 and produced photos and mobiles on this occasion. Finally, the Philippe Gravier Gallery in Paris offered her to create a set of tables and lamps for Design Miami Art Basel in 2019 and for the FIAC the “Pavillon Noir” built Place de la Concorde in Paris in October of the same year.
The international awards are numerous: in 1996 a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale recognizes her work as “Emerging Voices”; in 2016 the Jane Drew Prize was awarded to her by The Architects Journal in London to recognize a personality “possessing a creative force, advocating going beyond the rules and for equality”. In 2017, she received in New York the prestigious “Lifetime Achievement Award” from Architizer for all of her built work , as well as for “her commitment and her contribution to the debate on architecture”. In 2018, she received the title of Honorary Fellow of the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada (RIAC), the same year in October the ECC Architecture Award awarded by the European Cultural Centre in Venice, and in November the title of Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI).
She was made Doctor Honoris Causa in architecture from Laval University in Quebec in 2015. In France, she is «Chevalier de La Légion d’Honneur», «Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres» and «Commandeur de l’Ordre du Mérite». After having taught since the beginning of the 90s in Paris and in many countries, then directed the ESA in Paris for 5 years, she finally founded her own school of architecture in 2014 in order to renew, move the lines and consider the generational evolution of 21st century architecture students, “Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture”, originally based in Lyon. Her school was accredited by the “Royal Institute of British Architects” (RIBA) in 2017 and has been based in Paris since September 2019.