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Petronas Towers

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Petronas Twin Towers
The Petronas Towers.
The Petronas Towers.
The Petronas Twin Towers were the world's tallest buildings (to architectural peak) from 1998 to 2004.
Map
General information
LocationKuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Height
Antenna spire452 m (1483 ft.)
Roof403 m (1322 ft.)
Top floor375 m (1230 ft.)
Technical details
Floor count88
Floor area395,000 sq. m
4.25 million sq. ft
Lifts/elevators78
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

These towers, which were designed by architect César Pelli, were completed in 1998 and they became the tallest buildings in the world on the date of completion. The 88-floor towers were 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. 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. The 120-meter foundations were built by Bachy Soletanche, and required 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. This is due to the fact that Tower 1 ran into problems when they discovered the structure was 25 millimeters off from the 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 skyscrapers

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.

Skybridge

The towers feature a skybridge 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. The sky bridge is built in such a way that it will rotate with the high wind up by the top.

Elevator system

The towers have an advanced elevator system which attempts to minimise valuable floor space whilst maximising the number of people they can transport to their desired floor. The main bank of elevators is located in the centre of each tower. All main the elevators are double-decker with the lower deck of the elevator taking you to odd numbered floors and upper deck taking you to the even numbered floors. In order to access an even numbered floor from ground level, one is required to use an escalator to access the upper deck of the elevator.

From the ground floor there are three groupings of elevator. The "short haul" group of 6 elevators take people to floors between level 2/3 and level 16/17. The "mid haul" group of 6 elevators take people to floors between level 18/19 and level 37/38. Finally there is a a set of shuttle elevators that take people directly to levels 41/42. In order to get to levels above 41/42, one is required to take the shuttle elevators and then catch a connection lift to the upper floors. These connecting elevators sit directly above the elevators serving levels 2 to 38 but 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. It is therefore not possible to travel from the ground level all the way up to the upper most level using one elevator.

Apart from this main bank of elevators, there are a series of "connecting" elevators to take people between the elevator groupings. Unlike the main elevators, these are not of the double-decker type. Two elevators are provided for example to take people from levels 37/38 to levels 41/42 (levels 39 and 40 are not accessible as office space). This avoids the need for someone situated at the lower half of the building to go all the way down to the ground floor in order to go all the way up in the shuttle elevator in order to gain access to the upper half of the building.

The elevators contain a number of safety features. It is possible to evacuate people from an elevator stuck between floors by manually driving one of the adjacent elevators next to it and opening a panel in the wall. It is then possible for people in the stuck elevator to walk between elevator cars. During an evacuation of the building the shuttle elevator is allowed to be used. This is because 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.

Service building

Situated to the east of the Petronas Towers, there is a rather noisy and uninspiring, yet essential building for the towers. This building contains the essential services required to keep the building operational. One of its main tasks it to dissipate the heat from the air-conditioning system for all 88 levels in both towers.

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.
  • A man base jumped off a crane used for the window washing staff to the ground. The man immediately disappeared to avoid being arrested.

The Petronas Twin Towers have been featured in some forms of fiction. The animated television series Totally Spies! features one episode "Man or Machines" 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 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 connecting bridge and are confronted by a Kuala 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.

The towers also feature prominently in the recent Bollywood blockbuster Don - The Chase Begins Again, including a walk on the roof of the Skybridge by Arjun Rampal

The towers are also glimpsed briefly in the movie The Art of War, starring Wesley Snipes.

The twin towers also serve as the setting for three levels in the videogame Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. In where as an assassin you must infiltrate several floors in order to achieve your mission goals. Moreover, in Microsoft/Big Huge Games' Rise of Nations (2003), the library research button for the most advanced age, "Information Age", is represented by the Petronas Twin Towers.

Also, the towers and the park are part of the background in Arash's music video entitled Temptation.

Quote

Wikiquote has quotations related to Petronas Towers.

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)

3°9′28.26″N 101°42′41.94″E / 3.1578500°N 101.7116500°E / 3.1578500; 101.7116500

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