that's impressive
how much are the workers paid? i bet it's $10 a day

To me the clock tower has always suggested something really ominous. The photos of that person on the wall are awesome, but they're giving me vertigo.

This thing is so gaudy and tacky, its incredible though.

That made we wonder whether they are using cheap foreign labor. Don't you have to be Muslim to enter Mecca? (Not that there aren't other poorer countries where they could find Muslim workers to underpay)

Anyway, are all of the construction workers on the project Muslims?

Moderator - wondering why you removed my post? I simply asked if there was construction disruption given the passing of a very major figure in the family of the largest stakeholder as well as construction management company for this project.

Well, it is kind of off-topic.

A potential disruption in construction is off-topic?

Just to bring everyone in the loop on what I'm talking about, this building is being built by the bin Ladin family.

By the way, those horns for the building look absolutely massive! They're going to look awesome, creating a real Minotaur effect! Anyone know where we can find Theseus?

I was under the impression that most of the large construction projects in KSA are bin Laden run. . . I was also under the impression that the bin Laden family had disowned Osama a long time ago. . .

I certainly wouldn't anticipate a "disruption in construction" either. . .

. . .

post retracted.

^OK. . . so this is going to be one of these "fair warning" statements. . . please do not disrupt this thread any further. . . thank you. . .

. . .

The moon in that one evening picture looks exactly like the steel one that'll be on the top of the building.

Are they going to hoist that crescent in one-piece all the way up for piece by piece?

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I think it just looks terrible, it just doesn't fit in that city!

I agree with you, Crolo.

It´s ugly and absurd its design. The only thing they pretend is to have a very tall building, and in that historic and religious city it doesn´t fit at all.

Greetings from Madrid, Spain.

^Sounds a bit like the criticisms agains the Eiffel Tower in the 1890s.

Wikipedia

We are talking about a building immediately adjacent to the centre of the universe for the world's billion + Muslims, for which the Haj is considered the duty of every able-bodied Muslim.

i think it's spectacular!

if i was going to be nit-picky i would say it creates a 'wall effect' but they might have done that on purpose.

turned out much better than the renderings.

Unlike the Eiffel Tower, it's ridiculously gaudy and haphazard, it mixes styles and scales, it places a British clock smack dab in a Middle Eastern desert and has nothing to do with anything... yet somehow I love it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't clock towers originate in the Muslim world? :shrug: