The architect ChristianBecK, who designed the winning project in 1983, noting that a video by Pierre-Marie Epiney entitled "Quid du projet de Collège à Sierre" was produced in March 2023, with an interview of Gaetan Cassina (called by the director an "authority on art history"), calls for clarification of what the project would have been, and of the relevance of the opinion of the historian who worked to prevent it from being built.

PROJECT VISUALIZATION
Using modelling techniques that didn't exist in 1983, the architect presents the project as a combination of the past (a small pink house) and the future (a cultural, educational and leisure complex), which were to complement and enrich each other.

The architect reminds us that preserving the pink house was a self-imposed constraint... even though immobile historians had not given their opinion on the site prior to the competition!

The video allows us to appreciate whether, from an intellectual point of view, such a shortcoming should not be pointed out by those who are responsible for it, particularly when they make their comments and pronouncements after the fact, such alleged experts.

REMINDER OF HISTORIANS' ASSESSMENTS
Bouncing back from Pierre-Marie Epiney's video, and presenting the project modeled in 2023, ChristianBecK recalls that Gaetan Cassina had immediately hailed the chosen project in 1983, in an initial article published in the press:

- “No one will dispute the qualities of the project selected for the future realization".

He pointed out that only the winning project retained the pink house:

- " The pink house is committed to the winning project and to this one only, it must be noted".

He then conceived that it would be built, concluding his article as follows:

- “Let's hope it doesn't become synonymous with betrayal".

CONCLUSION
A few opponents to the project have come forward, and the historian has sided with them, forgetting his initial assessment and making no further mention of it.

The video thus raises questions about the rigor of the analysis, the coherence and the restriction of the disciplines of art history, where in this case, only painting was evoked(?)... while Rainer Maria Rilke's Valais quatrains, including those explicitly taken as reference by the architect, are totally ignored.

Finally, the video allows everyone to appreciate whether it was appropriate to deprive thousands of users, schoolchildren, students and spectators of the theater on this magnificent site, which is particularly enhanced by this architectural project so that everyone can enjoy it, ... and what's more, next to the preserved pink house!

ChristianBecK

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PS: See also (in French) the full video created by Pierre-Marie Epiney "Quid du projet de Collège a Sierre? / What about the College project in Sierre" and his pertinent question to Gaetan Cassina: "Est-ce mieux ainsi / Is it better this way ?"