The Millennium Clock Tower

The tower was the work of four artists. The Russian sculptor Eduard Bersudsky, who had spent years building kinetic sculptures in secret in Leningrad before moving to Glasgow, carved the strange, sad figures and designed the mechanisms. Tim Stead, a Scottish furniture maker, built the huge timber structure. Annica Sandström made the glass, and Jürgen Tübbecke designed the clock itself. Look for the details as the mechanism works: the tiny skeletons, the figure of a woman rocking a cradle, a monkey turning a handle, faces that could have come from a medieval carving or from a wartime photograph. The music is by Bach, played on a mechanical organ, which gives the whole performance a sombre grandeur.

The clock was commissioned by the museum in 1999 and quickly became one of the objects people ask for by name. It matters as a piece of public art that takes the twentieth century seriously, and as a reminder that a museum full of ancient treasures can also speak about the recent past. Bersudsky's work draws on the tradition of European automata and on the Russian avant garde, and this is his largest piece. Try to be here on the hour. The performance lasts several minutes and rewards patience; the higher figures only move near the end.

Did You Know? The clock is deliberately built like a cathedral, with a crypt at the bottom and a spire at the top, so that the eye climbs from death towards hope.