Archive for February, 2010
In this article, you will find the various statistical details related to the PETRONAS Towers:
• Height: 452 meters above street level
• Skybridge Length: 58.4 meters
• Skybridge Structure Height: 2+ stories (9 meters) tall
• Skybridge Location Height: 170 meters above street level
• Pinnacle Heights: 1 per tower, 73.5 meters tall each
• Pinnacle Weights: 1 per tower, 176 tons each
• Office Story Height: 4.0 meters
• Office Floor to Ceiling Heights: 2.65meters
• Underground Diaphragm Wall: 1.1 km in length, 80 cm thick
• Foundation Barrettes: 208 piles, 2.8 x1.2 meters in diameter
• Foundation Barrette Lengths: 40 to 115 meters in length
• Carpark Foundation Columns: 1,000 piles 1 meter in diameter, 29 meters in length
• Carpark Slab: 90 cm thick, 18,752 square feet
• Tower Support Rafts: two concrete platforms, 4.5 meters thick
• Support Raft Weights: two, weighing 32,500 tons each
• Access Roads: 2.5 kilometers in total length
• Surface Drainage System: 4 kilometers in length
• Towers Interior Volume: 395,000 square meters total
• Office Floorplates Size (gross): 2623 to 935 square meters
• Office Floorplates Size (net): 1,970 to 591 square meters
• Tower Usable Space Ratio: 76 percent
• Office Space per Floor: 1,300 to 2,043 square meters
• Carpark Depth: 5 stories of parking facilities
• Additional Basement Depth: 4 stories of Basement Concourse and Mezzanine
• Office Floors: 88
• Lobby Height: 2 stories
• Bustle Buildings: two, 44 stories each
• Sky Lobby Height: 2 stories, at levels 41 and 42
• Highest Occupied Floor: Executive Office, Floor 86, 361 meters above street
• Executive Office Size: 494.3 square meters
• Concrete Cores Dimensions: 73 x 73 meters
• Concrete in Towers Volume: 160,000 cubic meters
• Concrete Used Weight: 13 ,200 tons per tower
• Concrete Reinforcement Steel: 10,955 tons
• Foundation Concrete Used: 13,200 cubic meters
• Structural Steel: 7,500 tons
• Total Steel Used: 36, 910 cubic meters
• Stainless Steel Cladding: 85,000 square meters
• Window Glass: 78,000 square meters
• Doors: 1,800
• Stairs: 765 flights
• Escalators: 10 in each tower
• Elevators: 29, with double Decker cabins
• Total Construction Area: 395,000 square meters
• Total Project Area: 14.5 acres
• Weight Per Tower: 300,000 tones
• Usable Tower Space: 213,750 square meters per tower
• Total Office Space: 3,000,000 square meters
• Total Jobs in Towers: 10,000
• Annex Space in Two Bustles: 186,000 square meters
• Construction Costs: 2.5 billion U.S.dollars
• Ground Floor Area: 32,929 square meters
• Total Combined Floor Area: 790,000 square meters
• KLCC Project: 100 acres, 40 commercial, 60 public
The design models that inspired the creation of the PETRONAS Towers were taken from the many historical architecture styles rooted in Malaysian culture. Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic thoughts dominated the history of Malaysia with an additional European influence. The PETRONAS Towers reflect portions of all these models, and the towers that exist today owe a great deal of their power to the judicious combination of cultural influences in their design.
The earliest influences arrived from old Hindu and Buddhist temples. Although Hinduism flowered earlier, the growth of these two religions are both intertwined in the early history of Malaysia, and their architectures provide ample examples of the styles consulted in the designing of the PETRONAS Towers.
The Hindu Prambanan temple complex on the island of Java is typical of the tall and pointed forms of Hindu temple architecture. The Shiva Temple, built on the site around 850, bears a certain resemblance to the PETRONAS Towers, as both reach high into the sky in a series of staggered steps capped by decorative spires. The spires that appear on the Hindu temples at Angkor Wat in Cambodia were built in the twelfth century and are quite similar to the slightly rounded pinnacles on top of the PETRONAS Towers. The flavor of the ancient Hindu Dravidian architecture style is also present in the PETRONAS Towers as Dravidian towers often consisted of progressively smaller stories of pavilions placed one atop another.
Even the squat Great Stupa built by Ashoka the Great in 250 BC at Sanchi, India bears a family resemblance to the PETRONAS Towers due to the rising layers of concentric rings. The stupa building form was common in Buddhist religious architecture and later evolved in the Pagoda form that came to dominate Asian architecture. The PETRONAS Towers in some ways resemble tall stylized pagodas.
The classic motifs of Islamic architecture like orderly repetition, radiating structures and rhythmic patterns, and organized columns and alternating niches have also been a significant feature in the towers. Examples of these motifs abound in the PETRONAS Towers, as the basic superstructure of the towers includes a series of columns nestled in the niches of the eight pointed star that forms the base of each tower. The orderly repetition of the concentric glass and steel rings that cover the exterior of the PETRONAS Towers is also in keeping with Islamic architectural traditions. Islamic architecture grew largely from Persian styles and may be considered a further evolution of Persian architecture. The tapered pillars of Persian-style mosques superseded Hindu architecture in most of southern Asia 1,000 years ago. Islamic mosques are also famous for their minarets, which are often described as a gate between heaven and earth, a description that seems quite appropriate when applied to the PETRONAS Towers. The PETRONAS Towers feature a bit of Islamic arabesque in their geometric representation of living creatures as the towers in some ways resemble a pair of giant plant forms rising from the ground. Comparing the Sultan Ahmed Mosque built by the Ottoman Ahmed I in 1616 in Istanbul with the PETRONAS Towers built in Kuala Lumpur in 1998, we can see there are many familiar similarities.
The stylistic contributors to the design for the towers were many, and even echoes of the Eiffel tower can be noted. But the design is not merely a catch-all of all previous architectural styles of the world. The angularity of western architecture was rejected, but the western habit of innovation was heartily embraced. The flat planar focus of European architecture was not used, but the European habit of multiculturalism was adopted enthusiastically.
The design of the PETRONAS Towers can be seen as both a two-way window and a two-way mirror, looking inside and out of Malaysia at the same time, focusing modern economics and innovative technology from around the globe into Malaysia while reflecting Malaysia’s own culture back out into the world.
Below is the history of both Malaysia and the Petronas Towers. The two are combined so we can understand the Petronas Towers’ place in Kuala Lumpur and Malaysian history.
3500 BC – Stone Age settlements occurred occasionally at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers. This location is now the center of the modern city of Kuala Lumpur.
800 BC – The Hindu and Buddhist based Sumatran Srivijaya civilization was controlling the Malaysian peninsula.
1000 BC – A legendary Hindu-Malay kingdom known as Gangga Negara existed in the area of Kuala Lumpur.
1200 – Sultan Muzaffar Shah I of Kedah, which is the territory 100 kilometers north of Kuala Lumpur, became the first Malaysian peninsula ruler to convert to Islam.
1400 – The Sultanate of Malacca used to control the peninsula area including Kuala Lumpur.
1511 – The Portuguese defeated the sultanate and took over the control of the coastal areas in the Malaccan straits.
1542 – Portuguese traders from Goa, India built a replenishment station at Penang, which is an island 300 kilometers north of the coastline that lies east of the Kuala Lumpur location.
1592 – Sir James Lancaster became the first Englishman to explore the east coast of the Straits of Malacca, which are 40 kilometers east of Kuala Lumpur’s inland location.
1641 – The Dutch took over the control of the Malaccan Straits area from the Portuguese.
1650 – Chinese, Indian, Arabian and European trading ships started passing regularly through the Straits of Malacca on their way to spice centers to the west. Pirates plagued commercial shipping in the area.
1750 –Scattered Orang Asli homesites dotted the Klang and Gombak river confluence area. The name Kuala Lumpur, which means “muddy confluence” in Bahasa Melayu, became the most commonly used.
1826 – British signed a secret treaty with the king of Siam through which they gain ownership of Penang by acknowledging Siamese ownership of several northern Malaysian territories.
1829 – Three hundred kilometers south to Kuala Lumpur, at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula, Sir Stamford Raffles arranged an accord with local ruler Tengku Hussein to establish a trading post at Singapore.
1857 – Many new tin mines were established around Ampang, near Kuala Lumpur.
1860 – A large Orang Asli community used to thrive around the rowdy Chinese tin miner’s camp on the Kuala Lumpur site.
1868 – Politician Yap ah Loy brought first municipal organization to Kuala Lumpur.
1874 – The British government convinced the Sultan of Selangor to accept a British Citizenship.
1880 – The British administrative seat was moved inland from Klang to Kuala Lumpur.
1885 – Many wooden buildings in Kuala Lumpur were replaced with brick structures.
1887 – The first Moorish Islamic Buildings were erected in Kuala Lumpur.
1896 – The Federated Malay States were formed with British protection and Kuala Lumpur was the first capital. The federation included just the four Malaysian states nearest Kuala Lumpur.
1896 – Under the guidance of the British Resident Frank Swettenham, the Selangor Turf Club was founded to present horse races on the current site of the PETRONAS Towers.
1909 – The Bangkok Treaty between England and Siam gave the English a new territory in the Malaysian peninsula.
1948 – The Federated Malay States evolved into the Federation of Malaya, with the addition of many un-federated Malaysian states and the previously British Straits Settlements.
1957 – Malaya gained its independence from England and the Federation of Malaya was formed, with Kuala Lumpur as its capital.
1963 – The Federation of Malaysia was formed, including Malaya, Singapore, British North Borneo and Sarawak. Singapore left the Federation in 1965.
1970 – The Malaysian Federation state of Selangor ceded Kuala Lumpur to the federation government.
1981- Dr. Mahathir bin Mohammad began his term as Prime Minister of Malaysia, a period which lasted until 2003 and saw the rapid modernization of the Malaysia’s economy.
1988 – The Sarawak Transportation Company bought 255 acres of exhausted mining land on which to relocate the Selangor Turf club off the future PETRONAS Towers site.
1989 – Queen Elizabeth II visited Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur.
1990 – The design competition for the Kuala Lumpur City Center redevelopment project was won by the American firm Klages, Carter, Vail & Associates.
1991 – PETRONAS became a partner in the Kuala Lumpur City Centre re-development project.
1991 – International design competition for the two towers was held. Eight firms submit proposals. César Pelli and Associates’ design for the two towers were declared as the winners of the competition.
1992 – The last race was held at the Selangor Turf Club and the land was vacated.
1993 – Excavation for the PETRONAS Towers foundations began.
1994 – Construction on the PETRONAS Towers began.
1998 – The first tenants began moving into the PETRONAS Towers.
1998 – The newly formed Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra gave its first performance, in the PETRONAS Towers’ Dewan Filharmonik concert hall.
1999 – The PETRONAS Towers held their dedication ceremony on August 31 with Prime Minister and principal Kuala Lumpur redevelopment advocate Dr. Mahathir bin Mohammad presiding.
1999 – The planned city of Putrajaya was constructed twelve kilometers south of Kuala Lumpur and the federal government was relocated there, but Kuala Lumpur remained the country’s capital.
2005 – The PETRONAS Towers were evacuated for the second time in their history due to a small fire in the Cineplex. As with the first evacuation, which was for a bomb scare in 2001, no injuries were reported.
2007 – Skyscraper climber Alain Robert climbed up the outside freehand to the 60th floor of Tower Two where he was arrested by police, just as he was 10 years earlier when he climbed to the 60th floor of Tower One.
2009 – Skyscraper climber Alain Robert managed to elude police and finally climbed to the top of Tower Two.
The idea for what would become the PETRONAS Towers began in the late 1980’s when the Kuala Lumpur City Center development project was started with the intention of revitalizing the city core with an ambitious building plan. At the very beginning, it was decided to build a large 50 acre park which would have served as both recreational area and also could possibly be a part of an air quality control system in the smog-plagued Kuala Lumpur. But, as the city Government was not ready to spend the maintenance cost for that park, this plan was shelved. Later, a proposal of building something for both commercial and public use was taken as it was an economically sound option. A master plan development competition was held in 1990, and that was won by the American firm Klages, Carter, Vail & Associates which proposed a combination of 60 acres of public area including a 50 acre park, and 40 acres of commercial building development. The design responsibilities for the park were then given to the Brazilian designer Roberto Burley Marx. The development works of the commercial areas were given to a number of different development and construction firms. The development of the proposed twin towers in the center of the master plan was allocated to the Malaysian national petroleum corporation PETRONAS in 1991.
The contract resulting from another international design competition for the towers themselves was awarded to César Pelli and Associates and the year 1992 was spent in developing the structural designs for the towers. In the original plan, the goal of erecting the world’s tallest buildings was not mentioned, but soon before construction began it was determined to target this goal, and the architect subsequently modified the design to include the two tall cones that now crown the towers.
The excavation related work began in the year 1993 and the foundation was later finished in early days of 1994 after which construction of the towers began. The erection contract of Tower Two was assigned to a Japanese firm group headed by the Samsung Engineering and The construction contract for building the Tower One went to a Hazama Corporation group headed by a Korean company. A friendly competition ensued and Korean and Japanese national flags on each building were moved higher and higher as the twin structures were raised above the ground. The Korean firm won the competition by a little margin. By the year 1996, the exteriors of the towers were completed and in the year 1998, the first tenants moved into the building. The official opening ceremony took place in March of 1999.
This building is surely the most technically innovative and impressive projects in recent times. The towers serve as a proud national symbol for the people of Malaysia and also have turned out to be the most popular tourist destination in the Southern Eastern part of Asia.