THE SUNDAY TIMES: A new hotel in Mecca will be the world's second-tallest building and will feature the world's largest clock face
The world’s largest clock will be the centrepiece of a giant hotel that will dominate the skyline of Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca when it opens this autumn.
The Mecca Royal Clock Tower hotel, an architectural amalgam of Big Ben and the Empire State Building, is part of a £3.3 billion complex which, at 1,939ft, will be the second tallest building in the world.
The four faces of the German-built clock, each 141ft high, will be visible from 10 miles away by day and more than seven miles at night.
It has been deliberately designed to dwarf London’s Big Ben, whose faces are 23ft high. Mohammed al-Arkubi, the hotel’s general manager said: “Putting Mecca time in the face of Greenwich mean time, this is the goal.”
The clock’s mechanism will be started in August before Ramadan and the opening of the seven-star, 800-room luxury hotel, which will cater for rich participants in the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
The complex, built on the site of an old Ottoman fort, consists of seven towers, two helipads and a shopping centre that will open next year. Three thousand rooms and suites will go on sale, with one-room studio flats starting at £430,000.
The building is capped by a spire topped with a golden crescent.
Many of the rooms directly overlook the Kaaba, the cube-shaped granite building covered in black silk towards which every Muslim turns in daily prayer. Continue reading and comment >>> Rosie Kinchen | Sunday, June 27, 2010
