Abraj Al Bait
The Abraj Al-Bait is a government-owned complex of seven skyscraper hotels in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. These towers are a part of the King Abdulaziz Endowment Project that aims to modernize the city in catering to its pilgrims. The central hotel tower, the Makkah Royal Clock Tower, has the world's largest clock face and is the third-tallest building and fifth-tallest freestanding structure in the world. The clock tower contains the Clock Tower Museum that occupies the top four floors of the tower.
The building complex is metres away from the world's largest mosque and Islam's most sacred site, the Great Mosque of Mecca. The developer and contractor of the complex is the Saudi Binladin Group, the Kingdom's largest construction company. It is the world's most expensive building with the total cost of construction totalling US$15 billion. The complex was built after the demolition of the Ajyad Fortress, the 18th-century Ottoman citadel on top of a hill overlooking the Grand Mosque. The destruction of the historically significant site in 2002 by the Saudi government sparked international outcry and a strong response from Turkey.
Description
The tallest tower in the complex is the tallest building in Saudi Arabia, with a height of. Currently it is the fifth-tallest freestanding structure in the world, surpassing the Ping An Finance Centre in Shenzhen, China but shorter than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE, the Tokyo Skytree in Tokyo, Japan, the Shanghai Tower in Shanghai, China, and the Canton Tower in Guangzhou, China.The site of the complex is located across the piazza to the south from the main entrance to the Masjid al Haram mosque, which houses the Kaaba. To accommodate worshippers visiting the Kaaba, the Abraj Al-Bait Towers has two large prayer rooms capable of holding more than 10,000 people. The tallest tower in the complex also contains a five-star hotel, operated by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, to help provide lodging for the millions of pilgrims that travel to Mecca annually to participate in the Hajj.
In addition, the Abraj Al-Bait Towers has a five-story shopping mall and a parking garage capable of holding over a thousand vehicles.
The building was planned to be tall in 2006. In 2009, it was published that the final height would be. The complex was built by the Saudi Binladin Group, Saudi Arabia's largest construction company. The tallest building in the complex was designed by the German architect Mahmoud Bodo Rasch and his firm SL Rasch GmbH. The façade was constructed by Premiere Composite Technologies, the clock by German tower clock manufacturer PERROT GmbH & Co. KG Turmuhren und Läuteanlagen.
According to the Saudi Ministry of Religious Endowments, the project cost US$15 billion.
Clock
The project uses clock faces for each side of the main hotel tower. The highest residential floor stands at, just below the media displays under the clock faces. At, these are the largest in the world. The roof of the clocks is above the ground, making them the world's most elevated architectural clocks. A spire has been added on top of the clock giving it a total height of. Behind the clock faces there is an astronomy exhibition. In the spire base and the glass-covered floors there is a scientific center which is used to sight the moon in the beginnings of the Islamic months, and to operate an atomic clock which controls the tower clocks.List of component towers
| Tower | Height | Floors | Completion | Tenants |
| Makkah Royal Clock Tower | 120 | 2012 | Fairmont Makkah Clock Royal Tower Hotel | |
| Hajar | 58 | 2012 | Mövenpick Hotel & Residences Hajar Tower Makkah | |
| ZamZam | 58 | 2012 | Rifles tower, Pullman ZamZam Makkah, Elaf kinda | |
| Safa | 46 | 2007 | Al Safwah, Royal Dar Al eiman, Al safwah hotel | |
| Marwah | 46 | 2008 | Al Marwa Rayhaan by Rotana - Makkah | |
| Al Maqam | 61 | 2012 | Swissôtel al Maqam Makkah | |
| Qibla | 61 | 2012 | Swissôtel Makkah |
Features
The building is topped by a four-faced clock, visible from away. The clock is the highest in the world at over above the ground. The clock faces are the largest in the world, surpassing the Cevahir Mall clock in Istanbul.Each of the clock's four faces measures in diameter and are illuminated by 2 million LED lights, with four oriented edges, just above the clock alongside huge Arabic script reading: takbir|"God is greatest" on the north and south faces and on the west and east "There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of God.". Four golden domes on pillars on all the corners are also present. Another 21,000 white and green coloured lights, the same as the Saudi Flag, fitted at the top of the clock, flash to signal Islam's five-time daily prayers, and are visible as far as away. On special occasions such as new year, 16 bands of vertical lights shoot up into the sky. The clock's four faces are covered with 98 million pieces of glass mosaics. The Saudi coat of arms is displayed at the centre of each clock behind the dials. The minute hand is long, while the hour hand is long.
A private viewing deck is located above the ground, right under the crescent. There is also a public viewing deck at the base of the clocks at 393 metres' height.
There were reports that the clock would be set to local Mecca Time, in an attempt to replace the IERS Reference Meridian as the prime meridian for global time keeping, but the clock is set to Arabia Standard Time.
Spire
The clocks are topped by a spire with a golden crescent at the top. The spire has an eight-story glass-covered base which belongs to a scientific center having its own small exhibition, another observation deck at and a prayer floor in. The highest floor in The Jewel is the Control Tower Floor, which was planned to be used for controlling air traffic in the sky above Mecca. However, this was skipped for technical reasons and the future usage is not clear yet. Above from The Jewel the spire has only technical installations for sound, light and other infrastructure and eventually the last viewing deck and the crescent above it. The crescent has two regular floors with living areas and a few service floors and rooms.The crescent was constructed in Dubai by Premier Composite Technologies in April 2011. The crescent is made of fibreglass-backed mosaic gold, and it weighs up to 35 tonnes. Peugeot Joseph, the company official, said a team of five engineers and a hundred workers carried out the project, which cost 90 million United Arab Emirates dirhams and took three months to build.
The company has also constructed the Mecca Clock. The crescent was divided into 10 parts to move it to Mecca. The crescent was partly assembled on the base of the clock face to reduce it to 5 parts. Those five parts were then lifted and installed above the spire from 20 June to 6 July 2011.
The minaret and its base have loudspeakers which broadcast prayer calls to a distance of 7 km while nearly 21,000 lamps illuminate the surrounding area to a distance of. During occasions like Muslim Eids and new Hijri years, a 16-beam light illuminates an area of a diameter of around while 21,000 lamps beam white and green lights to a distance of. The light beams are intended to allow the deaf, and Muslims in more distant parts of Mecca and nearby cities, to know prayer timings.
Incidents
Construction fires
The Abraj-Al-Bait complex had two fire incidents during construction. The first fire accident was at Hajar Tower on 28 October 2008. It took 400 firefighters to put out the fire, which burned for 10 hours, consuming nine floors of the tower. According to eyewitness reports, the blaze erupted shortly after midnight, and spread rapidly because of wood used for construction stored in the premises. Soon, the entire building was engulfed in smoke. Hospitals were put on high alert, but no injuries were reported. A civil defence spokesman said the fire started on the 32nd floor of the Hajar Tower.The second fire struck the Safa Tower on 1 May 2009. No deaths or injuries were reported in the blaze which was quickly contained by Civil Defence. Eyewitnesses said the fire broke out soon after Asr prayer while some workers in the building were welding iron rods on wooden scaffoldings. The fire damaged a large part of the under-construction tower. According to Major General Adel Zamzami, director general of Civil Defence in the Mecca province, the fire broke out at the 14th floor and reached up to the 20th floor.