Makkah Royal Clock Tower

      The Abraj Al-Bait Towers, also known as the Mecca Royal Hotel Clock Tower, is a building complex in Mecca, Saudi Arabia owned by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts of Canada. The complex holds several world records, such as the tallest hotel in the world, the tallest clock tower in the world, theworld's largest clock face and the building with the world's largest floor area. The complex's hotel tower has become the second tallest building in the world in 2012, surpassed only by Dubai's Burj Khalifa. The building complex is meters away from the world's largest mosque and Islam's most sacred site, the Masjid al Haram. The developer and contractor of the complex is the Saudi Binladin Group, the Kingdom's largest construction company.

         It was built at the same place as the former Ajyad Fortress, an old fort of the Ottoman epoch dating from the 18th century and which was destroyed in2002 by the Saudi government in order to begin the building work, sparking global outcry.

              The tallest tower in the complex stands as the tallest building in Saudi Arabia, and the tallest hotel in the world, with a height of 601 metres (1,972 feet). Currently it is the second tallest building in the world, surpassing Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan. The structure had surpassed Dubai International Airport having the largest floor area of any structure in the world with 1,500,000 m2 (16,150,000 sq ft) of floorspace. It also surpassed the Emirates Park Towers in Dubai as the world's tallest hotel.

                The site of the complex is located across the street to the south from an entrance to the Masjid al Haram mosque, which houses the Kaaba. To accommodate worshipers visiting the Kaaba, the Abraj Al-Bait Towers has a large prayer room capable of holding more than 10,000 people. The tallest tower in the complex also contains a five-star hotel to help provide lodging for the millions of pilgrims that travel to Mecca annually to participate in theHajj.

                In addition, the Abraj Al-Bait Towers has a five-story shopping mall (the Abraj Al Bait Mall) and a parking garage capable of holding over a thousand vehicles. Residential towers house permanent residents while two heliports and a conference center are to accommodate business travelers. In total, up to 100,000 people could be housed inside the towers.[citation needed] The project uses clock faces for each side of the hotel tower. The highest residential floor stands at 450 metres (1,480 feet), just below the clocks. The clock faces are 43 × 43 m (141 × 141 ft), the largest in the world. The roof of the clocks is 530 metres (1,740 feet) above the ground, making them the world's most elevated architectural clocks. A 71-metre-tall spire (233 ft) has been added on top of the clock giving it a total height of 601 metres (1,972 feet), which makes it the second tallest building in the world, surpassing Taipei 101 in Taiwan. The tower also includes an Islamic Museum and a Lunar Observation Center which will also be used to sight the moon during the Holy Months.

The building was planned to be 485 meters tall in 2006. In 2009, it was published that the final height will be 601 meters. The complex was built by theSaudi Binladin Group, Saudi Arabia's largest construction company. The clock tower was designed by the German company Premiere Composite Technologies, and the clock by the Swiss engineering firm Straintec. According to the Saudi Ministry of Religious Endowments, the project cost 

 

The clock

               The hotel tower is topped by a four-faced clock, visible from more than 50 kilometres (31 miles) away, and is the largest clock in the world. The clock house and the spire are 200 meters high, The clock dwarfs London's Big Ben, once the largest four-faced clock in the world, and the previous title holder, the Allen-Bradley Clock Tower in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The clock's face is also bigger than the previous record holder, the Cevahir Mall clock in Istanbul, which has a 36-metre (118-foot) face with 3-metre-high (9.8-foot) digits set in the transparent roof of the shopping complex.

                Each of the clock's four faces is 46 m (151 ft) in diameter and is illuminated by 2 million LED lights, with four oriented edges, just above the clock alongside huge Arabic script reading: “God is the Greatest” on the north and south faces and on the west and east the Koran. Four golden domes on pillars on all the corners are also present. Another 21,000 white and green colored lights, the same as the Saudi Flag, fitted at the top of the clock, will flash to signal Islam's five-times daily prayers, and will be visible as far as 29 km (18 mi) away. On special occasions such as new year, 16 bands of vertical lights will shoot some 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) up into the sky. The clock's four faces will be covered with 98 million pieces of glass mosaics. The Saudi coat of arms is displayed at the center of each clock behind the dials. The minute hand is 22 m (72 ft) long, while the hour hand is 17 m (56 ft) long.

              An observatory deck is at the base of the clock. Elevators will take visitors up to a observation balcony just beneath the clock faces.

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