The largest hotel in the world will be near the Holy Mosque in Mecca
(ANSAmed) - ROME - Construction has started on Abraj Kudai, a hotel reminiscent of a city and the largest in the world. The project includes 10,000 rooms, 70 restaurants, helicopter landing pads, suites and entire presidential floors, a gigantic shopping center, a large conference center, parking lots and bus stops spread out across about a dozen towers with an immense cupola overhead. The design is influenced by traditional fortresses in the Saudi desert, stylized and reinterpreted in a contemporary manner. Ten of the towers will offer four-star accommodation, while two will be set aside for more luxurious, costly lodgings. The hotel will cover an area of 1.4 million square meters in the Manafia area (Mecca province), only 2.2 kilometers from the holy mosque Masjid Al-Haram, to which Muslim pilgrims from around the world flock every year. The architecture firm behind the massive works - which will cost around 3.5 billion dollars - is the international, Beirut-headquartered Dar Al-Handasah, while the interior design was entrusted to the London studio Areen Hospitality. Abraj Kudai is expected to open in 2017. (ANSAmed).
