Baytur's contract will take 30 months, of which eight months will be for detailed designs and the remaining 22 months for construction. Its consultancy team is made up of three US firms: Thornton-Tomasetti Engineersfor structural design; Swanke Hayden Connell Architectsfor architectural design; and Flack & Kurtzfor mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) design.

The contractor beat off competition from Austria's Strabag, Japan's Taisei Corporationand Belgium's Six Constructto take the contract, which includes structure, MEP, finishes and external works.

The 117-metre-high building will comprise three 18-metre-diameter cylindrical service cores, on top of which will sit the main library structure of seven floors. The building, which will have a total built-up area of 85,000 square metres, will house a library, commercial facilities and national gallery archives.

The architect is Japan's Arata Isozaki; the construction manager is Turner Construction Internationalof the US.

The library represents Baytur's second major building award in the local market. In May 2004, it was awarded the estimated $101 million main package on the Museum of Islamic Arts project (MEED 21:5:04).

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