Petronas in Kuala Lumpur: how the tallest twin towers in the world were built

This building was to become a symbol of modern, prosperous Malaysia and declare to the whole world about the ambitions of this Asian country. To implement the project of the highest skyscraper in Asia at that time, leading experts in the field of erecting tall buildings were invited, but even they had a hard time, since they faced a number of problems when building the Petronas towers.

The first difficulties arose at the design stage: the author of the project, Argentinean architect Cesar Pelli, could not agree with the Prime Minister of Malaysia on what the appearance of the future symbol of the country would be. But after several months of intense negotiations, the project was agreed and the builders began preparatory work. It is interesting that in order to increase competition and comply with the schedule for commissioning the facility, the construction of each tower was entrusted to different companies. It was 1992, and 6 years were allotted for the construction of the facility.

But it soon became clear that the towers are located in a place with different soil densities. One of the towers according to the project turned out to be on a rocky base, and the other - in the place of occurrence of loose rocks that are not able to bear the load. After completion of construction, an inevitable subsidence of one of the towers and the collapse of the entire structure would occur. I had to urgently look for another place, and as a result, the location of the towers was shifted by 60 meters. After that, both towers were on a loose base. For this reason, a lot of concrete piles were driven under the foundation, and a massive concrete pillow was poured as the foundation.

During the construction of the Malaysian towers, the concrete frame was used for the first time instead of steel, and silicon oxide was added to the concrete itself to give it increased strength.

The work of builders was significantly complicated by the local climate. Kuala Lumpur is located in the equatorial climate zone, which means that every day, after lunch, it rains heavily. Every day in the afternoon, the workers had to drop everything and run away for shelter, since working in such conditions was simply impossible. In addition, thunderstorms often occurred.

In order to save space, it was decided to place unusual elevators in the towers, a total of 58 in the entire Petronas complex. Two elevators were installed in each mine, one above the other. One elevator stopped only on even floors, and the second only on odd floors.

As a result of the hard work of builders and engineers, 88-story towers were finally completed. To give the structure additional strength, as well as to provide an additional way to evacuate people in case of emergency, the towers were connected by a bridge-gallery. The height of Petronas was 451.9 meters, which at that time made it the tallest building in Asia. This record was broken in 2003, but to this day they are the tallest twin towers in the world.

Petronas became a landmark object not only for Malaysia, but also for the whole of Southeast Asia. Offices and shopping pavilions are located here, as well as a magnificent viewing platform, which is incredibly popular among both tourists and residents of the capital.