The
Petronas Towers are
skyscraperA skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
s and
twin towers in
Kuala LumpurKuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...
,
Malaysia. According to the CTBUH's official definition and ranking, they were the tallest buildings in the
worldWorld is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth....
from 1998 to 2004 until surpassed by
Taipei 101Taipei 101 , formerly known as the Taipei World Financial Center, is a landmark skyscraper located in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan. The building ranked officially as the world's tallest from 2004 until the opening of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai in 2010...
, but remain the
tallest twin buildings in the world surpassing the
World Trade CenterThe original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
. The building is the landmark of Kuala Lumpur with nearby
Kuala Lumpur TowerThe Kuala Lumpur Tower is a tall tower located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Its construction was finished in 1995. It is used for communication purposes and features an antenna that reaches 421 m , which currently makes it the second tallest freestanding tower in the world. The roof of the pod is at...
.
Comparison with other towers
The
PetronasPETRONAS, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company that was founded on August 17, 1974. Wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia, the corporation is vested with the entire oil and gas resources in Malaysia and is entrusted with the responsibility of developing and...
Towers were the tallest buildings in the world for six years, until Taipei 101 was completed in 2004. The height of the towers is measured to the top of their structural components such as spires, but do not include antennas. Spires are considered actual integral parts of the architectural design of buildings, to which changes would substantially change the appearance and design of the building, whereas antennas may be added or removed without such consequences. The Petronas Towers still remain the tallest twin buildings in the world.
Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) and the
World Trade CenterThe original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
towers were each constructed with 110 occupied floors – 22 more than the 88 floors of the Petronas Towers. Willis Tower’s tallest antenna is 75.41 m (247.4 ft) taller than those of the Petronas Towers, however, in accordance with
CTBUHThe Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat is an international body in the field of tall buildings and sustainable urban design...
regulations and guidelines, the antennas of Willis Tower were not counted as part of its architectural features. The spires on the Petronas Towers are included in the height since they are not antenna masts. Therefore, the Petronas Towers exceed the official height of Willis Tower by 10 m (32.8 ft) even though the roof of Petronas Towers (378.6 m) is 63.4 m (208 ft) lower than the roof of Willis Tower (442 m).
History
Designed by Argentine architect
César PelliCésar Pelli is an Argentine architect known for designing some of the world's tallest buildings and other major urban landmarks. In 1991, the American Institute of Architects listed Pelli among the ten most influential living American architects...
and Filipino-Malaysian Engineer Deejay Cerico under the consultancy of J. C. Guinto, also known as the Golden Boy of Architecture, and Filipino Designer Dominic "Minick" Saibo, the Petronas Towers were completed in 1998 after seven years of construction and became the tallest buildings in the world. They were built on the site of Kuala Lumpur's
race trackA race track is a purpose-built facility for racing of animals , automobiles, motorcycles or athletes. A race track may also feature grandstands or concourses. Some motorsport tracks are called speedways.A racetrack is a permanent facility or building...
. Because of the depth of the
bedrockIn stratigraphy, bedrock is the native consolidated rock underlying the surface of a terrestrial planet, usually the Earth. Above the bedrock is usually an area of broken and weathered unconsolidated rock in the basal subsoil...
, the buildings were built on the world's deepest foundations. The 120-meter foundations were built within 12 months by Bachy Soletanche and required massive amounts of concrete. Its engineering designs on structural framework were contributed by Haitian engineer Domo Obiasse and colleagues Aris Battista and Princess D Battista.
The 88-floor towers are constructed largely of reinforced
concreteConcrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...
, with a steel and glass facade designed to resemble motifs found in
Islamic artIslamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally Islamic populations...
, a reflection of Malaysia's
MuslimA Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
religion. Another Islamic influence on the design is that the
cross sectionIn geometry, a cross-section is the intersection of a figure in 2-dimensional space with a line, or of a body in 3-dimensional space with a plane, etc...
of the towers is based on a
Rub el HizbThe Rub el Hizb is a Muslim symbol, represented as two overlapping squares, which is found on a number of emblems and flags. In Arabic, Rubʻ means "one fourth, quarter", while Hizb means a group or party...
, albeit with circular sectors added to meet office space requirements.
Tower 1, the west tower (right in the top-right photograph) was built by a Japanese consortium led by the Hazama Corporation while Tower 2, the east tower (left in the top-right photograph) was built by Samsung C&T and Kukdong Engineering & Construction, both South Korean contractors. The sky bridge contract was completed by Kukdong Engineering & Construction. Tower 2 became the first to reach the world's tallest building at the time.
Due to a lack of steel and the huge cost of importing steel, the towers were constructed on a cheaper radical design of super high-strength reinforced concrete. High-strength concrete is a material familiar to Asian contractors and twice as effective as steel in sway reduction; however, it makes the building twice as heavy on its foundation than a comparable steel building. Supported by 23-by-23 metre concrete cores and an outer ring of widely spaced super columns, the towers use a sophisticated structural system that accommodates its slender profile and provides 560,000 square metres of column-free office space. Below the twin towers is
Suria KLCCSuria KLCC is Malaysia's premier shopping centre located at the base of the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur City Centre based in Kuala Lumpur. It is located on 6 floors, with anchor tenants Isetan, Parkson Grand, Cold Storage Supermarket, Tanjong Golden Village, Signature's Level 2 Food Court...
, a shopping mall, and
Dewan Filharmonik PetronasDewan Filharmonik Petronas is Malaysia's first purpose built concert hall for classical music by Malaysia's oil company, Petronas. It is the home of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. Since then, this hall has hosted many of the world's leading artists and orchestras...
, the home of the
Malaysian Philharmonic OrchestraThe Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra is a Malaysian orchestra, resident at the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas in Kuala Lumpur. The orchestra gives concerts throughout Malaysia and also in Singapore....
.
Other buildings have used spires to increase their height but have always been taller overall to the pinnacle when trying to claim the title. In the aftermath of the controversy, the rules governing official titles were partially overhauled, and a number of buildings re-classified structural antenna as architectural details to boost their height rating even though nothing was actually done to the building.
Anchor tenants
Tower One is fully occupied by
PetronasPETRONAS, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company that was founded on August 17, 1974. Wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia, the corporation is vested with the entire oil and gas resources in Malaysia and is entrusted with the responsibility of developing and...
and a number of its subsidiaries and associate companies, while the office spaces in Tower Two are mostly available for lease to other companies. A number of companies have offices in Tower Two, including Huawei Technologies,
AccentureAccenture plc is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company headquartered in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. It is the largest consulting firm in the world and is a Fortune Global 500 company. As of September 2011, the company had more than 236,000 employees across...
, AVEVA, Al Jazeera English, Carigali Hess,
BloombergBloomberg L.P. is an American privately held financial software, media, and data company. Bloomberg makes up one third of the $16 billion global financial data market with estimated revenue of $6.9 billion. Bloomberg L.P...
,
BoeingThe Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
,
IBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, Khazanah Nasional Berhad,
McKinsey & CoMcKinsey & Company, Inc. is a global management consulting firm that focuses on solving issues of concern to senior management. McKinsey serves as an adviser to many businesses, governments, and institutions...
,
TCSTata Consultancy Services Limited is a global IT services, business solutions and outsourcing company headquartered in Mumbai, India. It is the largest provider of information technology in Asia and second largest provider of business process outsourcing services in India...
,
HCL TechnologiesHCL Technologies Limited is a leading global IT services company headquartered in Noida, India. It is primarily engaged in providing a range of software services, business process outsourcing and infrastructure services. HCL Technologies is fourth largest IT company in India and is ranked 48 in...
, Krawler,
MicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, The Agency (a modeling company) and
ReutersReuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
.
Suria KLCC
Suria KLCCSuria KLCC is Malaysia's premier shopping centre located at the base of the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur City Centre based in Kuala Lumpur. It is located on 6 floors, with anchor tenants Isetan, Parkson Grand, Cold Storage Supermarket, Tanjong Golden Village, Signature's Level 2 Food Court...
is a 1500000 ft2 upmarket retail podium at the feet of the Petronas Towers. It features mostly foreign luxury goods and high-street labels. Its attractions include an art gallery, a philharmonic theater, an underwater aquarium and also a Science centre. Suria KLCC is one of the largest shopping malls in Malaysia.
KLCC park
Spanning 17 acres (6.9 ha) below the building is the KLCC park with jogging and walking paths, a fountain with incorporated light show, wading pools, and a children's playground.
Skybridge
The towers feature a
skybridgeSkybridge may refer to:* an alternate term for skyway.* The bridge named Skybridge in Vancouver, Canada.* The bridge named Skye Bridge in Britain.* The bridge named Langkawi Sky Bridge in Malaysia.* The Skybridge Building in Chicago, United States....
between the two towers on 41st and 42nd floors, which is the highest 2-story bridge in the world. It is not attached to the main structure, but is instead designed to slide in and out of the towers to prevent it from breaking, as the towers sway several feet in towards and away from each other during high winds. It also provides some structural support to the towers in these occasions. The bridge is 170 m (558 ft) above the ground and 58 m (190 ft) long, weighing 750 tons. The same floor is also known as the podium, since visitors desiring to go to higher levels have to change elevators here. The skybridge is open to all visitors, but tickets are limited to about 1000 people per day, and must be obtained on a first-come, first-served basis. Initially, the visit was free but in 2010, the tickets started being sold by Petronas. Visitors can choose to opt for package one which is just a visit to the skybridge or go for package two to go to the skybridge and all the way to level 86. Visitors are only allowed on the 41st floor as the 42nd floor can only be used by the tenants of the building.
The skybridge also acts as a safety device, so that in the event of a fire or other emergency in one tower, tenants can evacuate by crossing the skybridge to the other tower. The total evacuation triggered by a bomb hoax on September 12, 2001 (the day after the September 11 attacks destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City) showed that the bridge would not be useful if both towers need to be emptied simultaneously, as the capacity of the staircases was insufficient for such an event. Plans thus call for the lifts to be used if both towers need to be evacuated, and a successful drill following the revised plan was conducted in 2005.
Lift system
The main bank of
OtisThe Otis Elevator Company is the world's largest manufacturer of vertical transportation systems today, principally focusing on elevators and escalators...
LiftsAn elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
is located in the centre of each tower. All main lifts are
double-deckerDouble-deck elevators are designed with two elevator cars that are attached, one on top of the other. This allows passengers on two consecutive floors to be able to use the elevator simultaneously, significantly increasing the passenger capacity of an elevator shaft...
with the lower deck of the lift taking passengers to odd numbered floors and upper deck to even numbered floors. To reach an even-numbered floor from ground level, passengers must take an
escalatorAn escalator is a moving staircase – a conveyor transport device for carrying people between floors of a building. The device consists of a motor-driven chain of individual, linked steps that move up or down on tracks, allowing the step treads to remain horizontal.Escalators are used around the...
to the upper deck of the lift.
From the ground floor, there are three groups of lifts. The "short haul" group of 6 lifts take passengers to floors between level 2/3 and level 16/17. The "mid haul" group of six lifts take passengers to floors between level 18/19 and level 37/38. There is also a set of shuttle lifts that take passengers directly to levels 41/42. To get to levels above 41/42, passengers must take the shuttle lifts, then change to lifts to the upper floors. These connecting lifts are directly above the lifts that serve levels 2 to 38. The pattern now repeats with the upper levels, one set serving levels 43/44 to 57/58 and one set serving levels 59/60 to levels 73/74.
Apart from this main bank of lifts, there are a series of "connecting" lifts to take people between the groups. Unlike the main lifts, these are not the double-decker type. Two lifts are provided to take people from levels 37/38 to levels 41/42 (levels 39 and 40 are not accessible as office space). This spares someone in the lower half of the building from having to go back to the ground floor to go to the upper half of the building.
The lifts contain a number of safety features. It is possible to
evacuateEmergency evacuation is the immediate and rapid movement of people away from the threat or actual occurrence of a hazard. Examples range from the small scale evacuation of a building due to a bomb threat or fire to the large scale evacuation of a district because of a flood, bombardment or...
people from a lift stuck between floors by manually driving one of the adjacent lifts next to it and opening a panel in the wall. It is then possible for people in the stuck lift to walk between lift cars. During an evacuation of the buildings, only the shuttle lift is allowed to be used, as there are only doors at levels G/1 and levels 41/42; therefore should there be a fire in the lower half of the building, this enclosed shaft would remain unaffected. Firefighter lifts are also provided in case of emergency.
Service building
The service building is to the east of the Petronas Towers and contains the services required to keep the building operational, such as dissipating the heat from the air-conditioning system for all 88 levels in both towers.
Notable events
Thousands of people were evacuated on 12 September 2001 after a bomb threat was phoned in the day after the attacks destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Bomb Disposal squads found no bomb in the Petronas towers but they evacuated everyone. Workers and shoppers were allowed to return three hours later, around noon. No one was hurt during the evacuation.
On the evening of 4 November 2005, a fire broke out in the
cinema complexTGV Cinemas is the second largest cinema chain in Malaysia after Golden Screen Cinemas.-Overview:...
of the Suria KLCC shopping centre below the Petronas Towers, triggering panic among patrons. There were no reports of injuries. The buildings were largely empty, except the shopping mall, Suria KLCC, because of the late hour; the only people involved were moviegoers and some diners in
restaurantA restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
s.
On the morning of 1 September 2009,
FrenchThe French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
urban climber,
Alain "Spiderman" RobertAlain Robert , is a French rock and urban climber, from Digoin, Saône-et-Loire, Bourgogne, France...
, using only his bare hands and feet and with no safety devices, scaled to the top of Tower Two in just under 2 hours after two previous efforts had ended in arrest. On 20th March, 1997, police arrested him at the 60th floor, 28 floors away from the "summit." He made a second attempt on 20 March 2007, exactly 10 years later, and was stopped once again on the same floor, though on the other tower.
The climax of the 1999 film
EntrapmentEntrapment is a 1999 American caper film directed by Jon Amiel and starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones.-Plot:Virginia "Gin" Baker is an investigator for Waverly Insurance. Robert "Mac" MacDougal is an international art thief. A priceless Rembrandt painting is stolen from an office one...
was filmed at the skybridge.
Quotations
A quote by the building's main architect:
"According to Lao Tse, the reality of a hollow object is in the void and not in the walls that define it. He was speaking, of course, of spiritual realities. These are the realities also of the Petronas Towers. The power of the void is increased and made more explicit by the pedestrian bridge that ... with its supporting structure creates a portal to the sky ... a door to the infinite."
-
-
- —César Pelli
César Pelli is an Argentine architect known for designing some of the world's tallest buildings and other major urban landmarks. In 1991, the American Institute of Architects listed Pelli among the ten most influential living American architects...
, architect (1995)
See also
- Petronas
PETRONAS, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company that was founded on August 17, 1974. Wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia, the corporation is vested with the entire oil and gas resources in Malaysia and is entrusted with the responsibility of developing and...
- Kuala Lumpur Tower
The Kuala Lumpur Tower is a tall tower located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Its construction was finished in 1995. It is used for communication purposes and features an antenna that reaches 421 m , which currently makes it the second tallest freestanding tower in the world. The roof of the pod is at...
- Menara Telekom
Menara Telekom is the headquarters of Telekom Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.It is 310 m tall, has 55 floors, and is shaped to represent a sprouting "bamboo shoot". It is located along the Federal Highway, Sprint Expressway and Jalan Pantai Baru and is served by the Rapid KL Kerinchi LRT station...
- Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
- List of skyscrapers
- List of tallest buildings in Kuala Lumpur
- List of twin buildings and structures
- List of tallest buildings and structures in the world
- List of tallest freestanding structures in the world
- Skyscraper Index
The Skyscraper Index is a concept put forward in January 1999 by Andrew Lawrence, research director at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, which showed that the world's tallest buildings have risen on the eve of economic downturns...
External links
Images