The Mecca Clock Tower - The Construction of the World's Largest Clock

Explore the engineering breakthroughs and fascinating story behind the design and construction of the world`s largest clock tower.

It is a construction project full of superlatives: the world’s largest tower clock in Mecca, the Holy City of Islam. The minute hand measures 23 meters in length and its giant clock face is 43 meters in diameter – therefore this gigantic clock tower is 35 times larger than Big Ben. At the end of construction it is clear that the building at the center of the sacred site breaks over 30 world records. Together with its partners, the architecture firm SL Rasch in Germany faces some unusual challenges. The team enters the project with a high-rise building already under construction, a tower not designed to support a 150-meter-high clock tower and a strict weight limit of 82,000 tons. As the pressure mounts, the team battle to construct the world’s largest clock at dizzying heights and in racing winds. How do you keep the structure as light as possible? And how do you deal with the toughest logistical challenge of all: a construction site out of bounds to everyone but Muslims. Time is short and the schedule is fixed. It promises to be a very, very close finish…