Abraj Kudai
| Abraj Kudai | |
|---|---|
| Basic data | |
| Place: |
Mecca , Saudi Arabia
|
| Construction time : | 2014-2020 |
| Status : | Under construction |
| Architectural style : | Modern |
| Architect : | Dar Al-Handasah Group, Beirut, Lebanon |
| Use / legal | |
| Usage : | Hotel, restaurants, food court, shopping mall, conference rooms, parking lots, ballroom |
| Room : | 10,000 |
| Client : | Saudi Ministry of Finance, Saudi Binladin Group |
| Technical specifications | |
| Height : | approx. 230 m |
| Floors : | 30-48 |
| Usable area : | 1.4 million m² |
| Building-costs: | $ 3.5 billion |
Abraj Kudai is under construction hotel in Mecca ( Saudi Arabia ), which should be completed in 2017 and will include 10,000 rooms and 70 restaurants. It will then be the largest hotel in the world with an area of 1.4 million square meters .
location
The hotel is being built in the Manafia district of Mekkas, about two kilometers south of the Great Mosque . It has a private road directly to the main mosque of Islam leads and is designed for pedestrians. The area can be reached both from the east and from the west via the main road.
Exterior design
The total area of the project is 64,000 square meters. Twelve towers will be built, which should have different heights. Ten of the towers form an outer rim and are each 180 meters high, with eight towers having 30 floors and two towers 35. The hotel rooms in these ten towers are said to be of the 4-star category . Two more towers with 48 floors and 230 meters high are inserted in the center. They should belong to the 5-star category and five upper floors should be reserved exclusively for the Saudi ruling family . These towers are crowned and connected by a common dome. The outer towers each have a similar block construction on the ground floors, but are varied in their upper floors. There are helicopter landing pads on two of the round and two of the rectangular towers. There should be its own bus station and its own private road to the Great Mosque.
Interior and use
70 restaurants are planned for hotel use alone in order to cope with the enormous number of possible guests. In addition, the hotel is to contain a shopping mall , parking facilities and food courts . The dome, which will be one of the largest in the world, houses a ballroom and conference rooms. The plan is to enable permanent living in addition to hotel use.
criticism
Due to the enormous dimensions and the other major projects in Mecca, in particular the Abraj Al Bait Towers and the Jabal Omer complex, which is to consist of up to 37 high-rise buildings, two main criticisms of the architecture have formed. On the one hand, Irfan Al-Alawi, director of the Islamic Heritage Foundation, accuses the Saudi ruling family of building Mecca-hattan, i.e. transforming the venerable, spiritual place into a modern city by tearing down the buildings that give the city its old appearance shaped. On the other hand, the British-Pakistani journalist Ziauddin Sardar has spoken of the fact that Mecca is degenerating into a kind of Disneyland, thus criticizing the commercialization of Mecca through the construction of luxury hotels, which Al-Alawi and others suggest by comparing it with Las Vegas . There was also criticism that Mecca could soon only be bought by the rich.
Current status
After the crane near the Great Mosque in Mecca collapsed during a storm on September 11, 2015, which left 107 dead and over 400 injured, the Saudi binladin group, the main contractor, was fined. In addition to the exclusion of new construction projects, the current construction projects, including the Jeddah Tower and the Abraj Kudai, were ordered to freeze. The company then had to lay off thousands of workers to prevent a financial collapse. In addition, falling oil prices made it difficult to continue financing the project. The planned opening in 2017 was postponed to 2018. Further construction was announced in 2017, but an opening date was waived and it was only estimated that the construction work will take more than two years, so that completion is not expected until the end of 2019 at the earliest, but more likely not until 2020.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Official website of the Dar Al-Handasah Group ( Memento of the original from December 5, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Oliver Smith, The world's largest hotel - another step towards "Mecca-hattan" , in: The Telegraph on August 10, 2016, accessed on August 14, 2016. See also the official website ( Memento des Originals from December 5, 2017 in Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. the construction company.
- ↑ Mike Seemuth: Saudi Arabia is building world's largest hotel in Mecca , in: The Real Deal on August 27, 2016, accessed on August 28, 2016.
- ↑ Oliver Wainwright, City in the sky: world's biggest hotel to open in Mecca , in: The Guardian on May 22, 2015, accessed on August 14, 2016.
- ↑ Michael Kerr, Mecca has turned into Disneyland , in: The Telegraph on October 2, 2014. Sardar also calls it a "grotesque Metropolis". - Laura McMah, Future in doubt for world's next largest hotel in Saudi Arabia , in: news.com.au on August 14, 2016, both accessed on August 14, 2016. The talk here is that normal pilgrims are literally being booted out ( "Everything has been swept away to make way for the incessant march of luxury hotels, which are destroying the sanctity of the place and pricing normal pilgrims out." And "... an experience closer to Las Vegas, which most pilgrims simply can ' t afford. ").
- ↑ Laura McMah, Future in doubt for world's next largest hotel in Saudi Arabia , in: news.com.au on August 14, 2016, both accessed on August 14, 2016
- ↑ Celine Aswad: Saudi Arabia to resume building mammoth Mecca hotel - sources , in: Reuters, August 14, 2017, accessed November 4, 2018.
Coordinates: 21 ° 24 ′ 6.4 " N , 39 ° 49 ′ 43.7" E