Petronas Towers

Petronas Twin Towers
The Petronas Towers. The Petronas Twin Towers were the world's tallest buildings (to architectural peak) from 1998 to 2004.
General information
Location	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Height
Antenna spire	452 m (1483 ft.)
Roof	403 m (1322 ft.)
Top floor	375 m (1230 ft.)
Technical details
Floor count	88
Floor area	395,000 sq. m 4.25 million sq. ft
Lifts/elevators	78
Design and construction
Architect(s)	César Pelli

The Petronas Twin Towers (also known as the Petronas Towers), in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, were once the world's tallest buildings when measured from the level of the main entrance to the structural or architectural top.

The Petronas Twin Towers are currently the tallest twin towers in the world, and they lay claim to being the world's tallest high rise of the 20th century. Critics point out that this applies to only one of four height categories defined by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat - although the three additional height categories were only introduced as the tower neared completion in 1996, as opposed to the original category which had been in use since 1969. [1]

History

The towers, which were designed by architect César Pelli, were completed in 1998. The 88-floor towers constructed largely of reinforced concrete with a steel and glass facade were designed to resemble motifs found in Islamic art, a reflection of Malaysia's Muslim religion. They were built on the site of Kuala Lumpur's race track. Because of the depth of the bedrock, the buildings were built on the world's deepest foundations built by Bachy Soletanche going down some 120 meters and requiring massive amounts of concrete. In an unusual move, a different construction company was hired for each of the towers, and they were made to compete against each other. Eventually the builders of Tower 2, Samsung Constructions, won the race, despite starting a month behind Tower 1, built by Hazama Corporation, although Tower 2 ran into problems when they discovered the structure was 25 millimeters off from vertical. 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 showcase a sophisticated structural system that accommodates its slender profile and provides from 1300 to 2000 square metres of column-free office space per floor.

Below the twin towers is Suria KLCC, a popular shopping mall, and Dewan Filharmonik Petronas, the home of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.

Comparison with other very tall buildings

A comparison of some of the world's tallest skyscrapers.

Petronas, Malaysia's national oil company, set out to build the world's tallest building. Although other buildings such as the Sears Tower have higher occupied floors, a higher pinnacle, and a higher roof, the Petronas Twin Towers' spires are classified as architectural details and rise to 452 m (1483 feet), giving it the greatest structural height until Taipei 101. Taking advantage of the quirks of the rules governing building measurements (counting spires but not antennas) has generated a large amount of controversy over the towers' claim to the title.

Other buildings in history have used spires to increase their height but had always been taller overall to the pinnacle when trying to claim the title, not shorter. In the aftermath of the controversy, the main set of rules governing official titles was 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). Since the rules had allowed a building that looked shorter to say they were taller, newer buildings have had a focus on getting more than one of the height categories and tried to cater to popular perception rather than technicalities.

Tenants of the Petronas Towers

Tower One is fully occupied by the Petronas Company and a number of its subsidiaries and associate companies. The office spaces in Tower Two are mostly available for lease to other companies. A number of companies have offices in Tower Two, including Accenture, Al Jazeera International, Bloomberg, Boeing, IBM, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, McKinsey & Co, Microsoft and Newfield Exploration.

Other facilities

The wading pool in KLCC Park with part of the city's skyline in the background.

Water fountain in KLCC Park, just outside Suria KLCC.

Sky bridge on the 41st floor

KLCC Park

Outside the building is a park with jogging and walking tracks, a fountain with incorporated light show, wading pools, and a children's playground.

Suria KLCC is one of the biggest shopping malls in Malaysia.

Sky bridge

The towers feature a sky bridge between the two towers on 41st and 42nd floors. The bridge is 170 m high and 58 m long. 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 passes (limited to c. 1400 per day, which usually run out before noon) must be obtained on a first-come, first-served basis. Passes are free. The skybridge is closed on Mondays.

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. However, the total evacuation triggered by a bomb hoax on September 12, 2001 showed that the bridge would not be useful if both towers need to be emptied simultaneously, and the capacity of the staircases was insufficient for such an event. Current plans thus call for the elevators to be used if both towers need to be evacuated, and a successful drill following the revised plan was conducted in 2005.

Notable Events

• After the bridge had been raised to the 41st floor and secured, there was still a gap a foot-wide between the towers and the bridge. But as soon as the bridge was secured, a few of the architects rushed to the 41st floor and jumped the gap onto the bridge in celebration.

• In 1999, French urban climber, Alain "Spiderman" Robert, using only his bare hands and feet and with no safety devices of any kind, scaled the building's exterior glass and steel wall. His bid to reach the top of the building was cut short when police arrested him at the 60th floor, 28 floors away from the "summit".
• On the evening of Friday, November 4, 2005, a fire broke out in a movie theater complex in the Suria KLCC shopping centre below the Petronas Twin Towers, triggering panic among patrons who fled screaming and coughing in the thick, acrid smoke. There were no reports of injuries. The buildings were largely empty because of the late hour; the only people affected appeared to be moviegoers and some diners in a few restaurants.

The Towers in Fiction

The Petronas Twin Towers have been featured in some forms of fiction. The animated television series Totally Spies! features one episode in which a manic supervillain makes the elevators drop and rise at top speed, turning them into a sort of amusement park attraction.

More notably and seriously, though, is the 1999 film Entrapment (film) starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery, about a master thief who infiltrates the Tower's complex security systems in order to loot a high-security bank in the tower at midnight on New Year's Day. A prime stunt sequence takes place when the pair are stranded atop the connectiong bridge and are confronted by a Kualar Lumpur police helicopter. Malaysians did not approve of the film, though, as they believed it portrayed Malaysia as backward and unsafe. The movie was ultimately banned in the country.

Quote

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, architect (1995)

References

• Wong, Dennis (2005-11-06). "Midnight fire scare at Twin Towers". New Sunday Times. p. 10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

• The Official Website
• The Official Petronas Community Website
• Structurae: Petronas Towers
• SkyScrapers.org - Illustration Entry of Petronas Towers
• panoramas.dk 360-Panorama Petronas Tower
• Drawings, photos and videos of the Petronas Towers
• Satellite Image of the Petronas Twin Towers at Google Maps
• Petronas Twin Towers at the Google Earth Community
• Design and construction of the Petronas Towers Template:Es icon

3°9′28.26″N 101°42′41.94″E