Mecca Royal Clock Tower vs Central Plaza

Informations

The Abraj Al-Bait (Arabic: ????? ??????, romanized: ?Abr?? al-Bayt 'Towers of the House') is a government-owned complex of seven skyscraper hotels in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. These towers are a part of the King Abdulaziz Endowment Project which aims to update 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 comprises the Clock Tower Museum which 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 builder of this complex is that the Saudi Binladin Group, the Kingdom's largest construction firm. It's the world's second most expensive building with the whole 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 important site in 2002 from the Saudi authorities sparked international outcry and a powerful response from Turkey.

Source: Wikipedia

Informations

Central Plaza is a 78-storey, 374 m (1,227 ft) skyscraper completed in August 1992 at 18 Harbour Road, in Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong. It's the third tallest tower in town after 2 International Finance Centre in Central and the ICC in West Kowloon. It was the tallest building in Asia from 1992 to 1996, until the Shun Hing Square was constructed in Shenzhen, a neighbouring city. Central Plaza surpassed the Bank of China Tower as the tallest building in Hong Kong until the completion of 2 IFC. Central Plaza was also the tallest reinforced concrete building in the world, until it was surpassed by CITIC Plaza, Guangzhou. The building utilizes a triangular floor plan. On the top of the tower is a four-bar neon clock that indicates the time by exhibiting different colors for 15-minute periods, blinking at the change of the quarter. An anemometer is installed on the tip of the construction's mast, at 378 metres (1,240 feet ) above sea level. The mast has a height of 102 m (335 feet ). Additionally, it houses the world's greatest church inside a skyscraper, Sky City Church.

Source: Wikipedia