Saturday, November 23, 2013

The Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Hi and welcome! A short profile of the Petronas Towers. I was there very recently for work so took the opportunity to take some night shots. The towers are amazing! Hope you enjoy them.  Second posting on Morocco that is overdue will be next
They were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004 until surpassed by Taipei 101, but they remain the tallest twin buildings in the world

The building was officially opened by the Prime Minister of Malaysia's Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad on 1 August 1999

It took 7 years to complete

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

The climax of the 1999 film Entrapment was filmed at the skybridge

Thousands of people were evacuated on 12 September 2001 after a bomb threat was phoned the day after the September 11 attacks destroyed the World Trade Center towers 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

On 15 April 1999, Felix Baumgartner set the world record for BASE jumping (since broken) by jumping off a window cleaning crane on the Petronas Towers

The towers feature a double decker skybridge connecting the two towers on the 41st and 42nd floors. It is the highest 2-story bridge in the world

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, as the towers sway several feet towards and away from each other during high winds
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

On the morning of 1 September 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

Twin-reflections