Clare Melhuish

Decq & Cornette Clare Melhuish

Odile Decq and Benoit Cornette first rose to international prominence with their administrative and social centre buildings for the Banque Populaire de l'Ouest in Rennes in 1990, which has won 10 architectural awards. Based in Paris, they featured in the French "40 under 40" exhibition in 1990 and have since been successful in many European competitions, recently completing two housing schemes in Paris, and working on large-scale urban projects such as their 1994 commission to design the masterplan for the revitalization of the docks at Paris' Port de Gennevilliers. Although Decq and Cornette have been variously described as post-modernist, deconstructionist and high-tech, their architecture is difficult to categorize: the distinctive hallmark of their architecture is their use of metal, for its precision, and sophisticated engineering techniques. This book charts the architects' working process in over 20 buildings and projects, featuring their highly original models, which use colour as a coding system for materials and structural elements, and have an architectural significance in their own right.