The Bleachery Heritage Project is a commemorate plaza located on the site of the former Rock Hill Printing and Finishing Company, known locally as “The Bleachery”, which was once the largest textile printing and finishing company in the world. The project provides a living memorial: to the bleachery, its employees, and the sense of community that surrounded it, while also forming a new urban room for the city, a plaza that becomes a monument to everyday life within a memory landscape. It transforms a former median into a linear park providing a planted buffer that separates pedestrians from vehicular traffic. Patterns once printed on fabric at the Bleachery are stamped along the concrete pathway lined with interpretive objects including historic roller printing machine parts, interactive rocking chairs resembling those machines, signage with QR codes linking to an audio record of stories, and a former bleachery building archway standing anew as a gateway entrance to shared public space. At its best, the plaza tries to serve its constituents, while telling stories of the past, inviting visitors to enter and experience them, to slow down and notice what once was.
Other prizes 2023 Cultural Heritage Landscape Award and 2023 Jury Top Pick
