This paper investigates the decentralized control of LTI continuous-time plants using generalized sampled-data hold functions (GSHF). GSHFs can be used to modify the structure of the digraph of the resultant discrete plant, by removing certain interconnections in the discrete-time equivalent model to form a hierarchical system model of the plant. This is a new application of discretization and has, as its motivation, the design of decentralized controllers using centralized methods. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.