Silent Monoliths: The Coaling Tower Project

"And the most anticipated book of early 2026? For me, it would be Silent Monoliths that feels like a book that will demand a place on my reference shelf. Brouws photographs the vestiges of North America’s steam age: the coaling towers that once powered locomotives, now abandoned, silent, overgrown — ghostly monuments to a bygone era, but somehow commentators on the energy politics of our own age. Don’t mistake this for ‘ruin porn’ or a romanticizing of decay. Instead this book sees these structures as vestiges of an industrial past that shaped landscapes, economies, and human movement. It brings to mind Islands of Abandonment by our very own Cal Flyn, and invites reflection on what we build, what we discard, and how memory lingers in the physical world. —————————————————"