The parents and grandparents of Antony Edouard, who established this studio, were a family of masons and stone merchants. His father, Médard Bechu (born in 1848) was the head of a firm of 250 workers located in Fay-aux-Loges in the Loiret region. From a very young age, he learned about the incredibly precise geometry needed for stereotomy and the production of working drawings for stone cutting.
Wounded and repatriated from the front during the First World War, he ended up drawing battle plans and military works alongside several architects including Camille Lefèvre (Grand Prix de Rome first prize winner in 1905 and pre-war architect of the Palace of Fontainebleau). He became friends with Lefèvre, thus unintentionally completing his training in the field of architecture.
In 1920, having recently married and graduated from university, he set up the family's first architecture studio. There, he offered his services as a project manager to architects (quantity surveys, specifications, etc.) and contractors (estimates, invoicing, etc.), who had little experience in producing cost estimates for their clients at the time.
In 1921, he had a son named Anthony Lucien Bechu. The boy grew up at 82 Rue Lecourbe in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, where the agency's offices can still be found to this day...

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, Anthony Lucien, who had been planning to attend the ESTP in Paris to obtain a dual degree as an architect/engineer, found that this would prevent him from enrolling in the Order of Architects at a later stage due to a recently issued decree. The Vichy government planned to create a reformed university that was only authorised to train those wishing to join this specific profession. He therefore continued his education on two fronts: a degree in engineering at the ESTP, and training in architecture with Camille Lefèvre, who was by then the chief architect of the Louvre and the Palais Royal.
Although the agency's business suffered considerably during the war years, it survived thanks to an associated property management business, which allowed it to wait for better days. After General de Gaulle awarded him the Croix de Guerre, a French military decoration, in 1939, Anthony Lucien re-enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts and completed his training with Auguste Perret. In the same year, he obtained his engineering degree and won an inter-university competition for the construction of a bridge over the Marne built from pre-stressed concrete; he was a strong advocate of this technology. He also met Marion Tournon-Branly, the daughter of the famous painter and the first woman to study at the École des Beaux-Arts, who became his closest friend. Having graduated in 1948, he followed in the footsteps of his father and took over the agency.

Thanks to his father's contacts, Anthony Lucien was introduced to the immense reconstruction project sweeping the country. From 1949 to 1952, he worked with the architect Jacques-Henri Labourdette, who was rebuilding the southern neighbourhoods of Beauvais, a region that had been hit particularly hard by the war. Alongside various other projects, he took on 200 reconstruction projects in one year!
Having recently married, he had a son on 31st October 1950: Anthony Emmanuel Bechu, the current director of the agency. Like the committed man he was, he displayed a distinctive 50s-style architectural approach through private homes designed for his family and friends: a series of middle-class dwellings. Homes which were resolutely open on the outside and merged into one another on the inside, and which already displayed a real grasp of bioclimatic design as found in the architect's writings.

In 1955, the agency submitted a winning entry to what was termed 'Operation Million', a competition launched in 1955 by General de Gaulle asking all designers in France to formulate proposals to lower the cost of a three-room low-rent housing unit to 1 million francs instead of the 1.5 million needed at the time. Anthony Lucien's two-pronged education as an engineer and architect allowed him to develop an innovative process that consisted of using prestressed concrete implemented on site, creating beautiful spaces perfect for families to use as living areas. The agency built nearly 3,000 homes in the Paris region, then throughout France. Operation Million helped the agency take off, establishing it as a well-known name among private and institutional developers; numerous residential, service and industrial project requests followed.
Very involved with the SADG (Society of Architects Graduated by the Government) and the French Society of Architects, for the promotion of the profession, and the assistance to young people, Anthony Bechu was offered to join the French delegation commissioned in 1966 by General de Gaulle to go to China to select Chinese students invited to complete their training in French architectural schools. It was 2 years after France officially recognized the People's Republic of China. Arrived in Beijing, he finds himself stuck there for 2 months in the middle of the cultural revolution. He met Zhou Enlai in person who at a private dinner gave them permission to leave the country via Hong Kong through a long railway trip opened by the Prime Minister, which allowed delegation to discover the multi-faceted face of China. This trip marks the first steps of the Bechu family in China.

He graduated as a state-registered architect in 1983, having attended the lessons of Bernard Huet and his team at UP8, where he analysed the necessary link between theory and practice, 'the art of building' and the 'language'. 'We can only begin writing architecture when we know how to read it.' The study of architecture and the analysis of different periods, from the Renaissance to the architecture of the 20th century, revealed and imparted the theory needed to begin this process of reading and, eventually, writing. A multidisciplinary education that combined the human sciences, urban planning, technology and history led him to define the typological model and deeply reflect on space. Anthony Bechu Jr. is a man of real concepts who studied at the École de Chaillot (Higher Institute of Historical Monuments), where he developed the rigour, the geometry of space and the desire to go and write his own architectural responses within a historical continuum.
Earning his stripes
It was during his military service that he was offered his first architectural experience at the GAP barracks. Inspired by the historical traditions of French military architecture, he turned the existing construction plans on their head. He breathed new life into the parade ground, its citadel, its buttresses and its curtain walls. He also gave the soldiers a new sense of identity, going so far as to redesign their rooms, offering them a balanced and friendly space while reinforcing the military efficiency of the organisation.

At this stage of the story, the great-granddaughters of the agency's founder step in to continue the family affair. Enter Clémence and Aliénor Bechu, two sisters with contrasting backgrounds united by the same dynamic of heritage and open-mindedness. Their very different sensibilities prove an ideal counterpoint in terms of methods and viewpoints. With great rigour, spirit and kindness, they are writing the next chapter of this family saga.

Clémence is the scientific soul of the duo. Her exemplary career has seen her pursue prestigious courses, first in Economics at Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas University and then in Finance at Paris-Dauphine University. Her thirst for discovery and love of culture then led her to China, where she studied at the renowned Tsinghua University in Beijing. Finally, she rounded off her studies with a Master's in Management from ESCP.

Utilising her experience allied with a passion for research, new avenues of entrepreneurship, technology and the emergence of new markets, she will create and lead an innovative logistics start-up “WineSitting”, before finally joining the family business where hes ability to see big picture, hes strategic mind, hes taste for inventing and designing new projects with his teams and customers, allows her to accompany the agency as director of development. In view of the urban projects developed in recent years under her direction, Clémence has recently been recognized by the SFU (Société Française d'Urbanisme), of which she is now a partner.

Aliénor is an interior designer and designer, graduated from Camondo School. She caught the architecture bug from her family as a young girl. With a father and grandfather who let her in on the secrets of the trade and the art of drawing at a very early age, she developed and an assertive sensitivity before even following her own path that guides her to the scale of the interior ...

Her perfectionism, her curiosity and her determination, combined with her taste for aesthetics and her ideas, naturally led her to take over in 2015 the reins of the family business Volume ABC, specialized in design and interior architectural projects. She brings her feminine touch with a pronounced taste for signature spaces to the agency

For Aliénor each project must bear a story to be accorded with its place and vocation to become. It is for her to privilege first of all the listening of the place in order to assimilate it, to value it and to restore it in its contemporary universe, while being as close as possible to the expectations and the comprehension of the stakes of its customers. www.volumeabc.fr

With them, it is also a new generation of associates and architects who are slowly setting in place, always guided by Anthony Bechu whose vision and avant-garde have never been so correlated to nowadays world challenges. especially through the study of fractals and biomimicry, a permanent watch on new technologies, and the role of planners and architects to play in the great challenge of climate change.