Kingdom Centre, also called Kingdom Tower (Arabic: برج المملكة), is a skyscraper located in the city of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is the second tallest skyscraper in Saudi Arabia, with a height of 302.3 m (992 ft). It's also the third tallest building with a hole in the world (after Shanghai World Financial Center and Tuntex Sky Tower). Kingdom Tower contains a total of 99 floors and 2 basement levels. Kingdom Tower is owned by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a prince of the Saudi royal family. It is also the headquarters of his holding company: Kingdom Holding Company. The total cost of the project was US$ 400 million and the contract was taken by Saudi Arabian Al-Seif and The Italian Impregilo.
Kingdom Centre is situated on Al-Urubah Road between King Fahd Road and Olaya Road in the growing business district of Olaya in Riyadh. Kingdom Tower was the winner of the 2002 Emporis Skyscraper Award, selected as the "Best skyscraper of the world for design". A five-level shopping centre, which also won a major design award, fills the eastern tube. The large opening reddens when filled by workers and changes in hue throughout the month.
Besides the shopping mall, Kingdom Tower contains the Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh and state-of-the-art apartments. The 56 m (184 ft) long skybridge atop the skyscraper, at a height of 290.4 m (953 ft) top floor, contains a public observation deck and a view of the entire city of Riyadh. The ellipse motif taken from the tower's footprint appears also in the light fixtures, ceiling panels, entrance canopy, wastebins and furniture. Kingdom Centre is in direct axis with Riyadh's other skyscraper Al Faisaliyah Center.
Famous quotes containing the words kingdom and/or centre:
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—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“To live and die amongst foreigners may seem less absurd than to live persecuted or tortured by one’s fellow countrymen.... But to emigrate is always to dismantle the centre of the world, and so to move into a lost, disoriented one of fragments.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)