Mecca Royal Clock Tower vs Cologne Cathedral

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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

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<p>Cologne Cathedral (German: Kölner Dom, Formally Hohe Domkirche Sankt Petrus, English: Cathedral Church of Saint Peter) is a Catholic cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. </p>It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the government of the Archdiocese of Cologne. It is a monument of architecture and German Catholicism and was declared a World Heritage Site in 1996. It is Germany's most visited landmark, bringing an average of 20,000 people every day. In 157 m (515 ft), the cathedral is now the tallest twin-spired church on earth, the 2nd largest church in Europe after Ulm Minster, and the third largest church in the world. It contains the second-tallest spires and is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe. The cathedral is given the of any church in the world by the towers for both spires that are huge. The choir has the largest height to width ratio, 3.6:1, of any medieval church.Construction of Cologne Cathedral started in 1248 but was stopped in 1473, unfinished. Work did not restart until the 1840s, and the edifice was completed to its original plan in 1880. Cologne's medieval builders had planned a grand structure to house the reliquary of the 3 Kings and fit its function as a place of worship for the Holy Roman Emperor. Despite having been left incomplete during the medieval period, Cologne Cathedral eventually became unified as"a masterpiece of exceptional intrinsic value" and"a powerful testimony to the strength and persistence of Christian belief in medieval and modern Europe".

Source: Wikipedia