Abraj Al Bait

The Clock Towers (, formerly known as 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, which is the Makkah Clock Royal Tower, is the fourth-tallest building and sixth-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 300 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 second most expensive building, with the total cost of construction totaling 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 an outcry and a strong reaction from Turkey. Description The tallest tower in the complex is the tallest building in Saudi Arabia, at 601 meters (1,972 feet) and a total surface area of 32,000 square meters. It is the sixth-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 Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 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 across the piazza to the south from the main entrance (King Abdul-Aziz Gate) to the Masjid al Haram mosque, which houses the Kaaba. It accommodates worshippers visiting the Kaaba. 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.