The Petronas Towers , skyscrapers and twin towers in Kuala Lumpur City, were once the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004 until surpassed by Taipei 101, but remain the tallest twin buildings in the world.

The building is a landmark of Kuala Lumpur City.

The towers were designed by Argentine architects César Pelli and Djay Cerico under the consultancy of Julius Gold and Filipino engineer Domingo Basa.

Completed in 1998 after a seven year of construction and became the tallest buildings in the world on the date of completion.

The site was formally the Kuala Lumpur's race track.

Petronas has a 120-meter foundations built within massive amounts of concrete. This 120 meters depth of the bedrock also the world's deepest foundations.

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.

An 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.

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 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.

High-strength concrete is a material twice as effective as steel in sway reduction; but the new material makes the building twice as heavy on its foundation than a comparable steel building.

Below the twin towers is Suria KLCC shopping mall, and Dewan Filharmonik Petronas (Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra)

[edit]KLCC park
Main article: 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. Suria KLCC is one of the largest shopping malls in Malaysia.[21]

[edit]Skybridge
The towers feature a skybridge between the two towers on 41st and 42nd floors, which is the highest 2-storey bridge in the world.[22] 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 during high winds.[23] The bridge is 170 m (558 ft) above the ground and 58 m (190 ft) long, weighing 750 tons.[24] 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 1700 people per day, and must be obtained for free on a first-come, first-served basis.[25] Visitors are only allowed on the 41st floor as the 42nd floor can only be used by the tenants of the building.[26]

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.[27] 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.[28] 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.

INDEX : Kuala Lumpur City  4 September 2008   March 21, 2011 09:59:11 PM