In the countryside outside the Midlands town of Tamworth stands an extraordinary golden tower, 12m in height, placed on a hill and visible from the nearby M42 and main rail line. It's the work of environmental artists Dalziel and Scullion, and is the centrepiece of a country park made to heal the land on the site of a former coal mine that supplied the factories and foundries of Birmingham and the Black Country. A former slag heap is planted with a wood of silvery birch trees, and a winding path to the top of the hill leads to 'Gold Leaf Buried Sunlight.'
Its position on the top of a hill of mining waste is emphasised by leaving the site around the tower unplanted and raw. Its form, an extruded birch leaf in plan, gives it a multifaceted shape, different from every angle and for me at least reminiscent of Mies van der Rohe's early Glass Tower project of 1922. Its golden surfaces catch the light, making a precious object that serves to restore the site located in a lush agricultural landscape after 150 years of mining activity. Completed in 2012, this monument is far less well known than it should be and stands as a rare and effective piece of art that is a memorial to the Industrial Revolution that spread and despoiled the world, and was formed in the English Midlands.