Determined to create a symbol of the great economic and technological progress of the Malaysian nation, the Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohammed pushed for the idea of re-developing the city center of Kuala Lumpur.  As the idea moved forward, it first became the Kuala Lumpur City Center organization, which then produced the concept of a pair of tall twin towers in the center of the redeveloped city center.

Malaysian culture is not isolationist, but rather gregarious, with a history of interaction with the many nations that have traveled to and through the territory.  Lying astride one of the great international trade routes, Malaysia has experienced an influx of peoples from India, China and Southeast Asia since the Stone Age, and the last two thousand years has seen European, Korean and Japanese influence as strong forces.  And yet the Malaysian national identity has never waned and citizens can look back with pride on an inspiring list of Malaysian patriots, heroes and personalities that stretches back for centuries.

Once the goal of a pair of landmark towers was established, the building of the PETRONAS Towers moved forward employing a mostly Malaysian work force and a majority of Malaysian materials.  Although many foreign architectural and engineering firms were involved, the Malaysian identity of the project was never ignored, and all foreign contractors worked hard to achieve harmony with Malaysian culture in the plans and designs they produced.

From one point of view the building of the PETRONAS Towers was the group effort of Malaysia’s leading businessmen who built themselves an impressive set of new offices.  Malaysian funding made the project possible and while the Malaysian petroleum giant PETRONAS was the lead contributor, key support and additional funds came from a select group of the most powerful Malaysian businessmen and the federal and local governments.

From an aesthetic point of view, the PETRONAS Towers are certainly Malaysian.  Both the exterior and interior designs and decoration reflect traditional Malaysian architecture and decorations, and the towers’ location in the center of Malaysia’s capital city of Kuala Lumpur reflects the fact that downtown Kuala Lumpur has historically served as the center of Malaysian culture, politics and economy.  Standing as a proud symbol of both Malaysia’s colorful past and promising future, the PETRONAS Towers beguile the Malaysian peoples, making the pair of towers the most popular tourist destination in Malaysia and the most appreciated national icon.

The building security system was developed by the Malaysian branch of the international firm Magnetic Control Systems and uses badges, pass cards, voice intercoms and photo identification systems in combination with conventional closed circuit cameras and audio alarms, proximity readers and air gates that register passing vehicles and pedestrians.  Access security is also assisted by the division of the towers into public and private areas, with the floors above the 42^nd floor all being private.

The fire safety system is managed by the Central Fire Command Centre in the towers where human personnel are present 24 hours a day.  The computerized LAN system connects a network of smoke and heat detectors, emergency call points and sprinkler system monitors, and includes a public address system and a special fire-fighter intercom.  In the event of a fire, the pressurized towers have the advantage of being able to more effectively close affected areas and expel contaminated air while allowing extra air to flow into the fireproof stairwells and elevator shafts.  Water sprinkler systems are installed in all areas of the towers and all of the structural concrete is painted with fireproofing paint.  The evacuation plan uses the shuttle elevators which run in special shafts with openings only at the top and bottom as a key part of the program.

The international electrical and mechanical engineering firm WSP Flack + Kurtz designed the chilled water, electric power, natural gas and telecommunications systems that serve the towers.

All of the systems were designed to maintain constant functionality using a network of redundant, parallel and looped pathways.    A Central Telecommunications Office in the building manages the network of fiber optic cables that serves communication needs within the building and connects residents to external phone and web systems via multiple exchange routes and carrier providers in such a way that connectivity is always assured despite high traffic.

Although Malaysia is an area that experiences frequent seismic activity, the PETRONAS Towers are designed to be extremely earthquake resistant.  In addition to lateral flexibility, the ability to bend but not break is a key feature of new earthquake resistant structures.  The PETRONAS Towers sit upon friction plates that can move under pressure and the structural columns are connected with sheaths that allow movement while retarding disconnection.  The reinforced concrete construction also absorbs impacts better than conventional steel beam constructions and experts theorize that the PETRONAS Towers would have been able to withstand an attack such as destroyed the World Trade Center in New York.

The PETRONAS Towers are found in the city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and are the centerpiece of the KLCC city center renovation program of the late 1990’s.  The towers are located in the middle of the Golden Triangle district, which is an area surrounded by the Kuala Lumpur Inner Ring Road and filled with numerous hi-rise buildings, shopping malls, international businesses and luxury hotels.

The city of Kuala Lumpur is located within the borders of the Malaysian federal state of Selangor, but the city is actually a special federally owned district.  Selangor’s main city is Klang, located on the coast about forty kilometers miles west of inland Kuala Lumpur.

The Malaysian peninsula stretches down from Thailand and Birmania, coming very close to the large island of Sumatra to the west.  The stretch of water between the peninsula and the island is known as the Malaccan Straits.  This area is a frequent passage on the route between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, and the famous Malaccan pirates frequently attached shipping vessels in this area for the many centuries when wind-powered wooden vessels travelled between Europe and the islands on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean.  Thankfully, pirate attacks in this area are quite rare these days.

Malaysia itself occupies the lower portion of the peninsula and portions of some neighboring islands to the east.  Malaysia is bordered on the north by Vietnam, Thailand, and Birmania, to the south by Indonesia, and the Philippine islands to the northeast.  Singapore is located on the very tip of the Malaysian peninsula, but is not a part of the Malaysian Federation.

India and Sri Lanka are 2,500 kilometers to the west, Australia is 2,500 kilometers to the southeast, and Beijing, China is about 2,500 kilometers to the north, northeast, and the Philippine islands are a bit closer, and more southerly.  Korea and Japan are about 5,000 kilometers to the north, and Africa is a bit more than 5,000 kilometers directly west.

Getting to Kuala Lumpur is usually a matter of flying into one of the two international airports that serves the city.  Once in Kuala Lumpur, a network of modern trains, monorails and metro systems makes moving about easy.  Driving a car is possible, but the numerous taxis are easier and fairly inexpensive.  An official tourist website asserts that “Semua pemandu teksi tahu ke KLCC” or “all taxi drivers know how to get to the KLCC” which is how the PETRONAS Towers complex is referred to locally.  Busses are also common in Kuala Lumpur and serve the large local population that commutes from surrounding suburbs into the city center.

Getting to the PETRONAS Towers is easy from anywhere in Kuala Lumpur and the metro station is quite close by.  Getting tickets is not always so easy however, and on many days long lines start forming as early as 6 AM for people hoping to get tickets for admission to the tower bridge for that day.  The ticket office opens at 8:30 AM and the line, which often weaves back out onto the street, begins to move fairly quickly at that point.  There are only 1,700 tickets given out for each day, so late arrivals are sometimes frustrated.  Once in front of the ticket window, visitors are given a choice as to the time for which they would like their appointment.  Each person is allowed to obtain up to five of the free tickets, and the 6PM time slot is preferred by some as it is the last tour of the day and therefore lasts a bit longer.

Once ticketed visitors arrive for their appointment they are given a badge and ushered into a room where they are given 3D glasses and shown a short promotional film about the PETRONAS Company and the towers.  After the presentation they are loaded into one of the shuttle elevators that travel very quickly up to the 41^st floor, arriving in less than one minute.  The group is then guided out onto the lower of the two decks of the Skybridge and allowed to remain for ten minutes, at which point the next group arrives.  Unfortunately there are no explanatory signs pointing out landmarks, but most visitors do report that the tour staff is friendly and polite.

As one would expect, the view from 170 meters off the ground is notable.  The massive greenery of Kuala Lumpur is mixed among attractive groupings of other high rise structures and older buildings.   There is often a slight haze and other skyscrapers do in fact block a fair amount of the view.  It is general knowledge that the best view aerial in Kuala Lumpur is from the top of the nearby KL Menara, where there is no time limit and a much less obstructed view of the city.  The KL Menara rooftop is actually the best place from which to view the PETRONAS Towers, particularly at night.  Regardless of the view, it is a definite thrill for most tourists to set foot on the Skybridge. Obviously, this trip to the Skybridge is not the best place for people with a fear of heights.

Back down on the ground floor there is a small museum to visit that includes some interactive displays and a dramatic Tesla coil demonstration.  The PETRONAS Towers contain a number of ground level features that are worth visiting.  The six story shopping mall get rave reviews from both upscale and budget conscious shoppers.  Sophisticated restaurants are scattered throughout the complex and a huge food court in the lower level boasts food from all over the world.

From outside the buildings, the views of the tower are impressive, particularly at night when the tops of the towers are brightly illuminated.  The views of the towers from immaculate tropical KLCC park next door are also much appreciated.  The large fountains in front to the buildings light up at night and there are special water shows scheduled from 6:30 in the afternoon until 10:30 at night.  Visiting the nearby Aquaria KLCC is on many tourist itineraries and they can be accessed through the tower buildings.

The number of designers, engineers, and building contractor management personnel that took part in the design process is about the same as the number of workers that actually built the towers. About 7,000 construction workers took place in the actual building of the towers, as there was a great concern for the congestion that would occur in the busy Kuala Lumpur city center.  7,000 design workers talking constantly among themselves for five or six years designed the building.  It was certainly an impressive conversation.  Although much of this talk took place directly between individuals, this project probably would not have been possible before the development of the Internet or sophisticated project and communication management software.  Every phase of the process, from the drawings and engineering research down to the daily work orders was accomplished with cutting edge software that was in many cases as technologically innovative as other parts of the project.

The high quality of the PETRONAS Towers is the result of the quality of the design team.  Although César Pelli was the titular designer and he served as the lead visionary, the design contributors included Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir, businessman T. Ananda Krishnan, senior managers of the PETRONAS company, the Kuala Lumpur City Center planning manager Arlida Ariff, and many high ranking national and local politicians. The major engineering and structural design teams were a collection of eminent international companies and consultants including such notables as César Pelli & Associates, Hazama Corporation, Adamson Associates Architects, Solétanche Bachy, RSP Architects Planners & Engineers, Samsung Engineering & Construction, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Syarikat Jasatera Sdn Bhd., and several dozen other major international firms. Legions of support engineers and designers in an array of specific disciplines contributed over the course of the years.

The design process itself was as much a marvel as are the physical towers visible today.  When construction began the design did not call for the tallest buildings in the world and the entire foundation was moved after excavations had already begun. The parking garage was located up inside the towers in César Pelli’s first drawings and the powerful Skybridge was absent from the original 1990 Klages Carter Vail & Partners plans for the Kuala Lumpur City Center development that first called for two towers.  These and many more features of the project changed as the design for the project evolved continuously over the life of the project and the final result is a testament to the efficiency of the whole multi-year design process.

The construction of the PETRONAS Towers was a model of cooperation and efficiency and in some respects even more spectacular than the final result.

After a year of planning, the construction phase began in March 1993 with the excavation work for the foundation. The originally selected location was moved 60 meters due to the configuration of the bedrock exposed during the excavations. The excavation for the foundation went 30 meters below the soil surface, with work proceeding only after sunset and more than five hundred dump trucks full of soil being removed from the site each night.

For each of the two towers, more than one hundred foundation piles were poured next. Once the forms were in place, the slabs for the foundation of the two towers were poured in two continuous pours lasting about two and a half days each and using over 13,000 cubic feet of concrete for each of the two slabs. On top of these slabs a perimeter wall over a kilometer in total length and 21 meters tall was created to form the shell that would become the five-level underground car park.

The contract to construct the two towers was given to two different contracting companies and their friendly competition resulted in both remarkable speed and valuable cooperation as each team shared with the other information gained during the building process.

Tower One, which houses the PETRONAS headquarters, was built by a group led by the Japanese Hazama Corporation along with J.A Jones Construction of Charlotte North Carolina, and the Mitsubishi Corporation, MMC Engineering, and Ho Hop Construction of Japan.

Tower Two was constructed by the SKJ Consortium, composed of Samsung Engineering & Construction and Kuku Dong Engineering & Construction from Korea, Dragages and Bachy-Soletanche from Singapore and Syarikat Jasatera and First Nationwide Engineering Sdn Bhd from Malaysia.

Work on the tower structures started in April 1994 was completed by June 1996, with the first tenants moving into the buildings in 1998. The Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohammad presided over the opening ceremonies for the towers on Aug. 31, 1999, which coincided with the celebration of Malaysia’s Hari Kebangsaan holiday that marks the unification of the country and the establishment of the Malaya Federation in 1957.

Although many foreign firms participated in the construction process, a great deal of the work was done by local Malaysian companies. It is estimated that sixty percent of the materials used in the construction were obtained locally. All of the concrete and construction timber was Malaysian in origin as were many of the interior finishing materials including marble, ceramic tiles, and drywall materials. Many of the more complex features such as escalators, electrical fixtures and components and furniture were also supplied by Malaysian firms.