Special Structures Materials and Processes: An Exercise in Perfection. The crescent encompasses a four-storey high column-free living space with a prayer room, resting area, kitchen and bathroom, and a few service floors. The colossal piece is 21 metres in diameter and is a monocoque structure, that is, loads of the piece are supported by the structural skin. The crescent at the apex of the Makkah Royal Clock Tower is 75 feet (23 metres) high. The symmetrical complex towers above the piazza and the Kaaba, with the clock depicting the time for prayers across the land. The tower contains numerous hotel rooms, a five-storey high shopping mall, Islamic Museum and prayer rooms, topped off by a golden crescent. The construction began in 2004 and was completed in 2012 by the construction firm Saudi Binladin Group. The skyscraper was designed by the firm RL Rasch GmbH headed by Mahmoud Bodo Rasch. The Makkah Royal Clock Tower stands 1,972 feet (601 metres) tall with 120 floors in the superstructure and 3 floors below ground. The other smaller structures to the sides of the Clock Tower also function as hotels and two of the other towers have helipad facilities as well. The 6-tonne crescent moon at the top of the towering building of the Makkah Royal Clock Tower is stark against the sky and can be seen from the piazza below.

The complex itself is a hotel and residential structure, just a couple of hundred metres from the Holy Mosque of Mecca. The construction of the Abraj Al-Bait complex has been highly controversial due to the demolition of the Ajyad Fortress and the removal of the mountain atop which it sat, which is where the complex stands now. Skyline with Abraj Al Bait (Royal Clock Tower Makkah) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

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