The Casino Knokke has the fourth largest chandelier in the World. It no longer occupies first place according to the Indian newspaper Deccan Herald in it's edition on Friday May 16th. The largest chandelier known in the world is now in the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Oman, and weighs 8.5 tonnes.Here are the Top 7 chandeliers in the world
7th place - Rialto Square Theatre, Joliet, Illionois The smallest-biggest chandelier in the world (!) is in the United States, in the Rialto Square Theatre, Joliet, Illionois. The chandelier in the Theatre is known as the 'Duchess' — took two years for ‘her’ to be born, and cost one and a half million dollars before her birthday. That was one and a half million, back in the 1920s’ … when you could buy a house for a person's weekly wage nowadays.
6th place - The Jai Vilas Palace, India The Jai Vilas Palace houses two chandeliers, each one weighing 3.5 tonnes. To test whether the roof would take their weight, ten elephants were used to stamp on the roof, to make sure! The palace was designed by a British colonel during colonial times in India, and has survived until now. The gold paint used in the room the chandeliers are in, is estimated to weigh 58 kg — enough gold to make a fit and healthy woman!
5th place - Dolmabahçe palace in Istanbul, TurkeyA 4.5 tonne chandelier resides at the Dolmabahçe palace in Istanbul. It contains 750 lamps, and is made of Bohemian crystal. It was a gift from Queen Victoria of Britain, to the Ottoman Empire in the late 1800s. The building also houses the largest collection of Bohemian and Baccarat chandeliers in the world, with even the staircases being made of Baccarat crystal!
4th place - Knokke Casino, Belgium. Knokke-Heist, in Belgium, is a seaside resort close to the Dutch border, and is home to one of Belgium's ten casinos, and also one of the world's seven biggest chandeliers. The Belgians are so fascinated by their chandeliers that they even have a word for 'chandelier room' – Kroonluchterzaal. The chandelier is made of Venetian crystal, 22,000 pieces of it to be exact, and includes 2,700 lamps creating light for the crystals to refract. It has a diameter of 8.5m and a height of 6.5m. The entire structure weighs 6 tonnes.
3rd place - Palais Garnier Opera, France The chandelier in the Palais Garnier in France, a country known for its fascination with things beautiful, objets d'art, also weighs 6 tonnes. It is in a fitting setting. The building, which is home to France's traditional operas, is very ornate, decorated with marble friezes, columns, and statues around its interior. Napoleon began its construction in 1858, and it stands even today. The huge chandelier is actually in the auditorium where the operas are played out.
2nd place - Kocatepe Mosque in Ankara, Turkey 'God' has always been the source of man's greatest inspiration to create — so many beautiful cathedrals and churches have been designed and created for religious purposes — and the chandelier at the Kocatepe Mosque, in Ankara, Turkey, holds to that tradition. It weighs 7.5 tonnes, is 5.5m in diameter, has 32 sidelights and 4 corner lights. The mosque is used by around 80,000 worshippers, and the building itself, along with the chandelier, is considered one of the great triumphs of Turkish architecture. The skeleton of the chandelier is only gold plated — pure gold would have stretched and broken long before now — and the smaller chandeliers which make up the whole, are made of small crystal balls with connecting chains.
1st place - Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, Oman The largest chandelier known in the world is in the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Oman, and weighs 8.5 tonnes. The actual chandelier is made of Swarovski crystal, has gold-plated metalwork, and hangs down for a length of 14 metres. It has a diameter of 8m to go with this height, making the size of the chandelier comparable to a five-storey apartment block or block of flats. It contains staircases and platforms necessary for maintenance, and has 1,200 dimmable halogen lamps triggered by more than 36 switching circuits. Given that the height of the ceiling in the main minaret is 90 metres, this huge chandelier is probably actually the most efficient way of lighting up the entire space!
