The Largest Hotel in the World
Hotel of dreams, With a capacity of 10,000 rooms, Abraj Kudai, the world’s largest hotel is being built in Mecca and this project open in 2017 and still under construction. The Largest Hotel in the World, staggering 10,000 Bed Rooms, 4 helipads rooftop, and 70 restaurants can accommodate 30,000 guest at a time, spanning 1.4 million square meters. This is Abraj Kudai Hotel in Mecca, Al Saudi Arabia with consisting of 12 towers of a ring and 45 stories high “The Largest Hotel in the World” is currently under construction. If Las Vegas is often described as the American Mecca, Mecca is becoming more and more like Las Vegas.
The commercialization of faith
“These are the last days of Mecca,” the director of a UK-based Foundation dedicated to safeguarding heritage in Islamic countries told The Guardian. “Everything was destroyed to make way for luxury hotel developments, which are ruining the sacredness of the place and making it too expensive for normal pilgrims,” said Irfan’s Al-Alawi, director of the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation.
The Abraj Kudai Project
The latest project under construction is a five-star mega-hotel scheduled to open in 2017, which is set to become the largest hotel complex in the world. Financed by the Saudi Ministry of Finance, the Abraj Kudai has 12 towers, a capacity of 10,000 rooms, 70 restaurants and 45 floors, including five for the exclusive use of the Saudi Royal Family. Designed by Dar Al-Handasah, a global firm behind all kinds of infrastructure such as parks at Angola’s airports in Dubai, the Abraj Kudai has been budgeted at more than 3 billion euros.
The 3D images show a round shape, in the style of a wedding cake, with a central tower ending in a dome surrounded by the other towers. Four towers have helicopter landing pads on top. The base of the complex, which consists of a ten-story platform on which the towers rest, will house a bus station, a shopping center, a convention center and a ballroom.
The era of commercial architecture
The largest hotel in the world will be located less than two kilometers from the great mosque, the holiest site of Islamic worship, which annually receives 2 million pilgrims during Hajj. The rest of the year, more than 20 million people visit the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, which has become a popular venue for weddings and conferences.
The sky above Mecca is full of cranes and next to the central square of the great mosque is the second largest building in the world, the Abraj al-Bait, with a hotel in the clock tower whose luxury rooms can cost 5,600 euro per night The complex occupies the site of an old Ottoman fortification that was demolished.
“The pilgrimage to Mecca is supposed to be a simple and Spartan ritual, but it has become a Vegas-like experience that most pilgrims cannot afford,” said Irfan Al-Alawi. Sites related to Muhammad are being devastated by this development. The house of the prophet’s first wife was replaced by public baths and the house of his adviser Abu Bakr is now a Hilton hotel.
In turn, the great mosque is the target of an expansion project that will more than double its capacity, from the current 3 million worshipers to almost 7 million in 2040.
