A spectacle in the [re]making

Post-industrial landscapes, voids left in the fabric of Rust Belt cities, present an opportunity for transformation, and the reclamation of a city’s identity. This project explores the tangible and intangible impacts of repair on a site that exhibits the agency to repair itself. Central to this exploration is the material identity of clay. As a core element in the history of Hamilton’s industrial past, clay represents not only the region’s manufacturing legacy but also the possibility for renewal. The project interrogates the placeness and cultural significance of clay as both a material and a medium of memory. Clay, with its malleable nature and ancient craft tradition, becomes a metaphor for the site’s ability to repair itself, reflecting its own material-making in a regenerative process. The building’s architecture, crafted with local clay, offers a narrative of resilience and continuity, inviting the landscape to reclaim agency in its restoration. Hamilton Brickworks —once a thriving industrial site—now stands abandoned with its past embedded in the physicality of the site and the production of bricks that shaped part of the city’s industrial development. By diving deep into the history of the Brickworks, this project builds upon research from its past to inform the repair for its future. The project aims to reveal what new relationships and experiences can be formed between people and the post-industrial landscape.