Black Anisotropy

For a woman born in the 1950s, choosing to be an architect is undoubtedly Odile Decq's first hold-up on her destiny. Setting up her own agency as soon as she graduated from the Ecole de la Villette, while continuing her studies at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, where she obtained her D.E.S.S. in urban planning in 1979, was the second.
 
International recognition came very early, in 1990, on the occasion of her first major commission: the Banque Populaire de l'Ouest in Rennes. The numerous awards and publications that accompanied the construction of this building underlined the birth of a new hope stemming from the punk revolt that challenged dusty conventions.
 
An iconoclastic personality, Odile Decq claims a transversal approach to architecture that would not be confined to a strict profession but would encompass other aspects such as design and plastic creation. As a true jack-of-all-trades, she designs buildings, furniture, lighting... just as she creates sculptural or photographic works. As with her architecture, the work begins with the most minimal lines.
 
Although the dynamics are different between that of a graphic composition and that of a future building, we find this research on space with the geometric layout of her drawings. Odile Decq refuses to do "illustrative drawing", in her compositions each line is expressed without chatter or embellishment. The simplification then leads to a form of total abstraction.
 
According to Odile Decq, the relationship of the spectator to the work is rather mobile. The space having for referent the human body, it is seen as a universe of experience and sensations. The spectator should not be contemplative but active.
 
Her creation is much more than a style, a writing, an attitude or a production process, it is multidisciplinary.