Petronas Twin Towers is inspired by Tun Mahathir Mohamad’s vision for Malaysia to be a global player. Soaring to a height of 451.9 metres, the 88 storey twin structure is the nation’s pride. But how much do you know about this crown jewel?
1) What it took to build the foundation of Petronas Twin Towers?
Led by master architect Cesar Pelli, an Argentine American architect, the digging works began on March 1993 and it required 500 truckloads every night for digging down of 30 metres below the surface. The next stage was the largest and longest concrete pour in Malaysian history consuming 13,200 cubic metres of concrete which was continuously poured through a period of 54 hours for each tower. There were 104 piles which formed the foundation for each tower.
2) What do Petronas Twin Towers represent?
The Twin Towers are shaped in eight-pointed stars based on simple Islamic geometric forms of two interlocking squares. The forms describe the Islamic principles of unity-with-unity, harmony, stability and rationality.
3) What are Twin Towers made of?
Twin Towers are mostly encased in steel and vision glass. The towers feature multi-faceted walls of 33,000 stainless steel and 55,000 glass panels. In terms of area, it translated into about 890,000 sq feet (or 83,500 sqm) of stainless steel cladding and about 830,000 sq feet (or 77,000 sqm) of vision glass. It takes 2 months to clean them all.
4) How much do Twin Towers weigh?
Each tower weighs about 300,000 tones. That is equivalent to roughly 165,000 cars per tower. Of the total weight of 600,000 tones, steel used weighs 36,910 tones.
5) How much usable space is there?
There is 213,750 sqm usable space per tower. Using football field as comparison, that is equivalent to almost 30 football field worth of space per tower.
6) How long did it take to build Petronas Twin Towers?
A project of this scale would usually take eight years to complete. However, it only took 6 years to complete the twin towers. It was said that each floor had to be constructed in four days to meet the budgeted timeline.The twin towers were completed in 1998 but officially opened only on the 28th August 1999.
7) Who constructed the Petronas towers?
Tower one was built by a Japanese Consortium led by Hazama Corp and made up of JA Jones Construction Co., MMC Engineering Services Sdn Bhd, Ho Hup Construction Co. Bhd and Mitsubishi Corp.
Tower Two was built by a South Korean Consortium led by Samsung C&T Corporation and comprised of Kuk Dong Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd. and Syarikat Jasatera Sdn Bhd.
8) How much did it cost to build the Petronas towers?
It was reported that the cost to build the twin towers was USD 1.6 billion.
