Petronas Twin Towers

Petronas Towers is located in Kuala Lumpur, Capital of Malaysia. They are also known as Twin Towers and were hailed as the world’s tallest building until in 2004 Taipei 101 succeeded it. The Towers stand tall at the height of 1486ft. It has 88 floors and has 78 elevators. Although as of now Taipei 101 is the tallest building, Petronas are the tallest twin buildings in the work. This building was constructed by Cesar Pelli.

The Petronas Tower reflects the Islamic values of Malaysia. One can find the Islamic motifs on the face of the tower. This building is made with massive amounts of concrete, glass and steel. It was constructed on the race course of Kuala Lumpur. The foundation of this site is known as the deepest in the world, hence massive amount of concrete was required to fill it. The floor area of the towers is 4.25 million sq. ft.

Petronas is Malaysia’s Oil Company and had the towers commissioned. Petronas has its offices in the Tower One. The Tower Two has lot of other giants like IBM, Accenture, Bloomberg, Mckinsey, Boeing, Microsoft, Reuters, etc. The offices have been leased out to these companies whereas there is a mall below these towers called Suria KLCC as well as there is also a Philharmonic club also below the towers.

The USP of this tower is its Skyway. It has been constructed connecting the two towers on the 41st and the 42nd floors. The skyway is a two storey bridge and is supposedly world’s highest two storey bridge. This is bridge is open for the visitors. In fact this bridge also serves as a podium for the people willing to go to the higher floors as people have to change the elevators at this floor. However visitors can only access the 41st floor as from 42nd floor onwards there are corporate offices.

The towers have been a prime backdrop for a lot of Hollywood and Bollywood movies. A sequence has been shot in the Hollywood movie Entrapment in the towers. Tom Cruise actually climbs these towers in the movie Mission Impossible 3. The skyway of these towers has been featured in the Bollywood movie Don, 2006 sequel of the movie Don.

A surprising fact about these towers is 60% of material used to construct them has been local. If looked at closely the tower’s floor plate is largely based on the Islamic principles of ‘unity within unity, harmony, stability and rationality’. The whole concept of the towers is based on the classic architectural value. The strange thing about the skyway is that it can also be used as an evacuation mode in case of an emergency. This skyway has been kept intact by a three round bearings which are 51 meters in length. The interiors of the towers have been done up in the traditional Malaysian style. There are traditional motifs everywhere as well as glass paintings which depict the culture. The Towers are amalgamation of technology as well as rich tradition.