The Petronas Twin Towers (Malay: Menara Berkembar Petronas) (also known as the Petronas Towers or just Twin Towers), in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia are twin towers and were the world's tallest buildings before being surpassed by Taipei 101. However, the towers are still the tallest twin buildings in the world. They were the world's tallest buildings from 1998 to 2004 if measured from the level of the main entrance to the structural top, the original height reference used by the international organization Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat from 1969 (three additional height categories were introduced as the tower neared completion in 1996).[3]
Comparison with other towers
In accordance to CTBUH, the pinnacles contributed to the overall height of the towers, thus surpassing the Willis Tower.The Petronas Twin Towers were the tallest buildings in the world until Taipei 101 was completed in 2004, as measured to the top of their structural components (spires, but not antennas).[4] Spires are considered 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 Twin Towers remain the tallest twin buildings in the world.[5]
The Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) and the World Trade Center towers were each constructed with 110 occupied floors – 22 more than the Petronas Twin Towers’ 88 floors. The Willis Tower and the World Trade Center’s roofs and highest occupied floors substantially exceeded the height of the roof and highest floors of the Petronas Twin Towers. The Willis Tower’s tallest antenna is 75 m (246 ft) taller than the Petronas Twin Towers’ spires. However, in accordance to CTBUH regulations and guidelines,[3] the antennas of the Willis Tower were not counted as part of its architectural features.[6] The spires on the Petronas Towers are included in the height since they are not antenna masts. Therefore, the Petronas Twin Towers exceed the official height of the Willis Tower by 10 m, but the Willis Tower has more floors and much higher square footage.
History
Designed by Argentine architect César Pelli, the Petronas Towers were completed in 1998 after a seven year build and became the tallest buildings in the world on the date of completion.[7] They were built on the site of Kuala Lumpur's race track.[8] Because of the depth of the bedrock, the buildings were built on the world's deepest foundations.[9] The 120-meter foundations were built within 12 months by Bachy Soletanche, and required massive amounts of concrete.[10]
The 88-floor towers are constructed largely of reinforced concrete, with a steel and glass facade designed to resemble motifs found in Islamic art, a reflection of Malaysia's Muslim religion.[11] Another Islamic influence on the design is that the cross section of the towers is based on a Rub el Hizb (albeit with circular sectors added to meet office space requirements).[12] Tower 1 was built by a Japanese consortium led by the Hazama Corporation while Tower 2 was built by Samsung C&T and Kukdong Engineering & Construction, both South Korean contractors. The sky bridge contract was completed by Kukdong Engineering & Construction.
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.[13] 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 meter concrete cores[14] 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.[15] Below the twin towers is Suria KLCC, a shopping mall, and Dewan Filharmonik Petronas, the home of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.
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).
Tenants of the Petronas Twin Towers
A skybridge connects the two towers
An inside view of the skybridgeTower One is fully occupied by Petronas and a number of its subsidiaries and associate companies, while the office spaces in Tower Two are mostly available for lease to other companies.[16] A number of companies have offices in Tower Two, including Accenture, Al Jazeera English, Carigali Hess Bloomberg, Boeing, IBM, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, McKinsey & Co, TCS, HCL Technologies, Krawler Networks, Microsoft, The Agency (a modeling company) and Reuters.
KLCC Park
Main article: KLCC Park
Spanning 17 acres (69,000 m2) 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. Suria KLCC is one of the largest shopping malls in Malaysia.[17]
Skybridge
The towers feature a skybridge between the two towers on 41st and 42nd floors, which is the highest 2-story bridge in the world.[18] It is not directly bolted to the main structure, but is instead designed to slide in and out of the towers to prevent it from breaking during high winds.[19] The bridge is 170 m (558 ft) above the ground and 58 m (190 ft) long, weighing 750 tons.[20] 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 free passes (limited to 1700 people per day) must be obtained on a first-come, first-served basis.[21] Visitors are only allowed on the 41st floor as the 42nd floor can only be used by the tenants of the building.[22]
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.[23] The total evacuation triggered by a bomb hoax on September 12, 2001[24] (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.
The Lift system
The main bank of Otis Lifts is located in the centre of each tower. All main lifts are double-decker 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 escalator to the upper deck of the lift.[25]
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 6 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.[25]
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 evacuate 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.[26] 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.[26]
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 September 12, 2001 after a bomb threat was phoned in the day after the September 11 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.[27]
On the evening of November 4, 2005, a fire broke out in the cinema complex of the Suria KLCC shopping centre below the Petronas Twin Towers, triggering panic among patrons who joined screaming in the thick, acrid smoke. 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 restaurants.[28]
On the morning of September 1, 2009, French urban climber, Alain "Spiderman" Robert, 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.[29] On March 20, 1997, police arrested him at the 60th floor, 28 floors away from the "summit." He made a second attempt on March 20, 2007, exactly 10 years later, and was stopped once again on the same floor (though on the other tower).[30]
Popular culture
The Petronas Towers were a setting for some scenes in the 1999 film Entrapment starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones.[31] It ends in a dramatic pursuit of the two stars by the Pasukan Gerakan Khas, eventually leading to Connery's capture and Zeta-Jones's escape.
The towers were depicted in flames for a few seconds in the future-set film Children of Men.
A dynamic aerial shot of the towers at 4:00 pm is the first image of the popular American television series 24. That is, the towers are the first thing that we see in the first episode of the show.
In the episode "Bound and Buried", in Life After People: The Series, the towers are shown collapsing 500 years after people due to corrosion and the weakening of the concrete columns.
The towers are displayed in Rise of Nations, where it is in the background of the Information Age icon.
The towers also feature in three levels of the game Hitman 2: Silent Assassin where the player travels from one tower to another using the sky bridge, though it is unlike the real sky bridge; instead of being a narrow passageway, the sky bridge is wide and entered by breaking a panel of glass.
The PS2 game Burnout Dominator features the Twin Towers as Spiritual Towers. Episode 22 from the anime series Cowboy Bebop shows what closely resembles the Petronas Twin Towers being blown up by a terrorist. This was taken off the air for a short time post-9/11.
The Petronas Towers are also a major setting in the 2006 Bollywood film, Don - The Chase Begins Again, starring Shahrukh Khan and 2005 Kollywood film, Anniyan, directed by S. Shankar.
Also, in the 2007 movie, Billa starring Ajith, Nayanthara, Namitha, a remake of the 1980 classic Billa by Rajnikanth, the Petronas Twin Towers are being seen as a major setting.
It's also can be seen in Joseph Vijay's Kuruvi and Surya Sivakumar's Ayan
Gallery
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Pictures of Petronas Twin Towers Foggy tower scene
Skyscraper comparison
The Petronas Towers, looking upwards
From front-central-base entrance
Suria KLCC shopping complex at the base of the towers
Part of the Suria KLCC shopping complex
Front facade of the towers
Towers from the water fountain in KLCC Park
Towers with Suria KLCC and water fountain
Front facade of the towers
The towers
The towers
Looking up from concourse level in Suria KLCC's atrium space
From the flyover bridge
View from the public park
Galactica Night at KLCC Petronas Twin Towers
From the open public children park/playground
Kuala Lumpur from Genting Highland Resort
The water fountain at the rear entrance of Suria KLCC
The 41st floor skybridge
Towers at night
Close up view of the skybridge
The twin towers in the rain
Petronas Towers at Night
Looking up from the base of one of the Towers
KLCC park fountain, at night
Looking up from the base of one of the Towers at night
Petronas Towers at Night
A view of the facade details of the towers from the street level
Bustle Area Detail.
Ceiling Detail at the Lobby
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