l'enjeu majeur De l'événementiel - GL events

26.RENCONTRE i nt e r vi e w
girl but, in the end, I entered the competitive exam
for an architecture school.” Unless Odile Decq’s
rebellious streak comes from an unfortunate
phrase pronounced by an architect friend of her
parents’ when she knew she had been accepted:
“Wonderful news! We need girls in architecture –
you can design kitchens and cupboards for us…”.
Rome, Tangiers, Beijing…
Regardless of the source, thirty years later,
Odile Decq is anything but confined. Since she
graduated from her architecture school in 1978,
she set up an architecture agency that soon got
her talked about. From the end of the 1980s,
after winning the competition organised by
the Banque Populaire de l’Ouest for its social
and administrative centre in Rennes, the Odile
Decq-Benoît Cornette* agency has acquired
international renown. It was the concept and the
design, choice and way of combining the materials
in this project that made all the difference. “We
were the outsiders. If we won this contract, it is
because we were the token young architects in
the competition,” specifies Odile Decq. A few years
later, in 1996, the ODBC agency won another
prestigious contract for the control centre for the
A14 motorway and its viaduct in Nanterre. Odile
Decq thus put together a totally innovative project,
putting the control centre not on the ground but
on high, on the deck of the motorway footbridge.
“Thanks to this project, we have participated in
many conferences abroad, whereas in France,
we come over as being loose canons,” explains
Odile Decq who now has projects in progress all
over the world: the Museum of Contemporary Art
in Rome with Burkhard Morass, the Maas Tower
in Rotterdam, Pavillon 8 for GL events at the Lyon
Confluent (see inset p. 26), the harbour station in
the port of Tangiers, or the Art Hotel in Beijing…
Odile Decq owes her international success to her
natural sense of curiosity, amongst other things:
“In the 1980s, with my partner, we spent our time
going to London for music, but we also took the
time to go and look at the transformation of the
Docklands in the city: the metal structures, etc.
We sniffed around any worksite we could find.”
“I am deeply suspicious of ideologies!”
“Architecture is a profession where you have to
be tenacious and strong. Women tend to opt
for negotiation, whereas in this profession you
have to dare to confront people,” claims Odile
Decq. It has to be said that in this respect,
she had excellent role models. Since May 1968,
at UP6, her architecture school, the tradition
consisted in questioning the role of Art Schools.
The teachers, all with names like Castro or Le
Dantec, were all experienced rebels from the
May 68 demonstrations. “It is almost certainly
for this reason that I never really had any specific
influences or masters. Anything but! I am deeply
suspicious of ideologies, movements, trends. Of
course, I look at what is being done elsewhere
in the world, but I remain free.” In retrospect, in
her opinion, it was precisely this freedom, this
independence in her formative years that have
made her what she is today. “It strengthened
my character. And that was a good thing. In
architecture, you need both talent and personality.
Today, there is a tendency to confine architecture
students whereas, on the contrary, they need to
be given help in developing their personality”.
This is a principle that she is trying to put into
practice at the school of which she has been the
director for a year. And what school is this? It
is the oldest architecture school in France, the
Ecole Supérieure d’Architecture (ESA) in Paris,
founded by the famous French architect Eugène
Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879) at a time when there
was a real struggle against the academicism of …
Art Schools, what else?!
* The name of her partner, with whom she
worked until his death in 1998.
Lyon : Un projet tout
en verre pour 2010
Dès la fin des années 1980, en remportant le concours organisé par la Banque Populaire
de l’Ouest pour son Centre administratif et social de Rennes, le cabinet Odile Decq-Benoît
Cornette acquiert une renommée internationale.
Since the end of the 1980s, when the Odile Decq-Benoît Cornette agency won the competition
organised by the Banque Populaire de l’Ouest for its social and administrative centre in Rennes,
the agency has constantly gained in international renown.
Situé au Sud de la Presqu’île
lyonnaise, Lyon Confluences
est aujourd’hui un projet urbain
majeur en Europe. À terme, il va
permettre à Lyon de doubler la
superficie de son hyper-centre
grâce au nouvel aménagement
d’un territoire longtemps consacré
à l’industrie et aux transports.
Au total, trois nouveaux pavillons
vont être construits. Architectes
et paysagistes se sont emballés
pour ce projet sans nul autre
pareil. Odile Decq est de ceux-là.
Pour le Pavillon 8, au sud du Port
Rambaud, qui abritera notamment
le futur siège de GL events, elle a
proposé un bâtiment qui réinterprète
l’architecture industrielle et s’intègre
au paysage urbain grâce au travail,
sur la façade, de l’artiste suisse
Felice Varini. « Nous avons poussé
le plus loin possible le principe
du bâtiment transparent, tout en
verre. Cela donne des façades
un peu magiques. Sans compter
les opportunités que cela offre
en termes de développement
durable, d’économie d’énergie.
Ce qui est à l’œuvre aujourd’hui, à
Lyon, en termes d’architecture est
formidable », affirme Odile Decq.
Lyon: A project made
of glass for 2010
Situated to the south of the Lyon
Presqu’île, Lyon Confluences is now
one of Europe’s major urban projects.
It will ultimately allow Lyon to double the
surface area of its hyper-centre, thanks
to new organisation of land long left to
industry and transport. In total, three
new pavilions will be built. Architects and
landscape gardeners have really gone to
town on this project unlike any other. Odile
Decq is one of them. For Pavilion 8, at the
south of Port Rambaud and which will
ultimately house the future headquarters
of GL events, she has proposed a building
that reinterprets industrial architecture
and fits into the urban landscape thanks
to the work on the façade by the Swiss
artist, Felice Varini. “We have pushed the
concept of the totally transparent, glass
building as far as we can. The result is
rather magical facades. Without counting
the opportunities they provide in terms
of sustainable development and energy
saving. What is happening today in Lyon,
in architectural terms, is truly wonderful,”
affirms Odile Decq.
GL events magazine - Octobre/October 2009