to create


is a campus for creation and art, a school to learn several crafts.

Charles Baudelaire wrote: "Modernity is the transitory, the

fugitive, the contingent, half of art, the other half of which is the

eternal and the immutable". an art school must have these two

facets. an institutional, solemn, strong part, which inscribes it in

the city as an immutable object. a "modern" part, evolving and

adaptable, which responds to all the requirements and needs

linked to creation. this duality is already present on the site of

theUSEGO building, the sheet of sheds is thus extended to

accommodate the various programmes linked to teaching and,

in the administrative building,the public media library finds its

place and retains its symbolic and independent entrance, as

well as a direct link with the school.

the project is in line with the urban industrial logic of the site

and respects the flow logics associated with it, particularly the

strong linearity linked to the production lines. unlike the other

industries in the district, the school opens up this logic to the

city and its movements.

far from the industries, a legend says that in the Middle Ages

the cathedral of Strasbourg was located on the shortest route

to the market, and in fact it was regularly crossed by the

merchants accompanied by their carts and animals.

when a building has the capacity to be crossed like a square,

it asserts itself as an integral part of the urban fabric and

the spatial experience of the city.

In the future, it is easy to imagine that the infrastructural

passage that is the agora could open up to the city, be crossed

and possibly join the condemines site.

the choice of the silhouette of the extension, not only allows the

existing building to be bordered, but also creates a continuity

with the neighbouring buildings which, along the railway line,

sculpt the landscape of Sierre between sheds and pointed roofs.

the presence of the volume is thus diluted by the process of

repetition.






location: Sierre, Switzerland


year: 2021


programme: school


status: competition


surface : 25’000m2


client: Kanton Wallis


with: méderic gilgen & benoît jacques