In this three-video series, Gianpiero Venturini interviews successful architect Odile Decq to get personal information about her career and to ask her opinion about the ever-changing profession of architect. The interview is divided into three parts:
PAST questions the conditions that allowed each interviewee to embark on a path of success that led your company to be among the most recognized internationally. Each architect explains the reasons for his decision to study architecture, describing his first important assignments and revealing personal anecdotes from his youth.
PAST questions the conditions that allowed each interviewee to embark on a path of success that led your company to be among the most recognized internationally. Each architect explains the reasons for his decision to study architecture, describing his first important assignments and revealing personal anecdotes from his youth.
Gianpiero Venturini: What were the reasons why you decided to study architecture?
Odile Decq:
- "I decided to establish myself as an architect immediately after my diploma, without working for an architect. I never worked for an architect".
- (...) "my father's friend told my parents: "You know, this is very nice and very convenient that young women now want to start studying architecture, because they are more pragmatic than us - the men - and will be very efficient to work in our office - the men's office - working in the closet and the kitchen". So I was thinking, my God, I'm recognized for being pragmatic, so maybe I can apply that and show that I can be very good at building, in the way I can build. So that's what I wanted to prove at first and that I could do it".
Odile Decq:
- "I decided to establish myself as an architect immediately after my diploma, without working for an architect. I never worked for an architect".
- (...) "my father's friend told my parents: "You know, this is very nice and very convenient that young women now want to start studying architecture, because they are more pragmatic than us - the men - and will be very efficient to work in our office - the men's office - working in the closet and the kitchen". So I was thinking, my God, I'm recognized for being pragmatic, so maybe I can apply that and show that I can be very good at building, in the way I can build. So that's what I wanted to prove at first and that I could do it".
PRESENT presents the unique characteristics of each study, helping us to understand how they work and how they have grown over time. Through research into each company's organizational structure, current fields of research, and analysis of some of the most recent projects, we are given an interesting overview of each of the practices, allowing us to understand some of the reasons for their success.
GV: Which kind of topics are you into or trying to research today?
OD: “For me, architecture is an adventure. It has to be a place where people can move, live in good conditions, forget the hardness of the life outside, so it has to have a kind of humanistic approach, whatever the project is - a museum, housing, offices, whatever- so it always has to have something in addition to the functional programme to provide people with something which is better and more comfortable”.
OD: “For me, architecture is an adventure. It has to be a place where people can move, live in good conditions, forget the hardness of the life outside, so it has to have a kind of humanistic approach, whatever the project is - a museum, housing, offices, whatever- so it always has to have something in addition to the functional programme to provide people with something which is better and more comfortable”.
FUTURE seeks to deliberate on relevant issues of today and tomorrow. Each architect suggests a selection of key concepts that represent his or her own specific approach, while anticipating future trends in architecture. Each interview closes with a tip from the interviewee, addressing the new generation of architects and designers.
GV: What advice would you give to the new generations of architects?
OD: “(…) the world doesn’t need - maybe anymore - architects who only do plans or build buildings, because the machines and the robots will do that better than us. So what will remain for the people educated in architecture is the way to think and to rethink the organisation of the world and the organisation of society, the organisation of people’s lives. (…) I always tell my students that they have the opportunity to dream a century, to dream their time, the time of their lives, because they will have the opportunity to reinvent, to reinvent and to do it. So I have no advice to tell them except: dream and do”.
OD: “(…) the world doesn’t need - maybe anymore - architects who only do plans or build buildings, because the machines and the robots will do that better than us. So what will remain for the people educated in architecture is the way to think and to rethink the organisation of the world and the organisation of society, the organisation of people’s lives. (…) I always tell my students that they have the opportunity to dream a century, to dream their time, the time of their lives, because they will have the opportunity to reinvent, to reinvent and to do it. So I have no advice to tell them except: dream and do”.
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