We took the Petronas Towers Sunset Tour on Merdeka Day (Malaysia’s Independence Day) August 30, 2019, which commemorates Malayan Independence from Britain. The towers were lit up to celebrate the day and it culminated in a massive music & fireworks show. We were all very excited to take the tour, me a little nervous, as I’m afraid of extreme heights!! ? But, I am so glad that we we were all able to look down upon the metropolis of Kuala Lumpur from such an impressive vantage point and get to see first hand all the planning, conceptualization & determination that went into building a superstructure such as these incredible towers. Read on for some facts….
The Petronas Towers are the tallest TWIN towers in the world at 1483 feet and 88 stories, they also have the tallest double story sky bridge in the world at 450 feet high that connects at level 41 & 42. The towers took 6 years to build and cost approximately $1.6 billion USD. The weight of each tower is 300,000 tons and the usable space that each one contains is the size of 30 football fields. The architectural footprint of each tower is formed by two interlocking squares, which form an eight-pointed star (when seen from the top). These geometric figures were used to symbolize unity, harmony, stability and rationality – all important principles of Islam (the official religion of Malaysia).
One particular fun fact that the kids loved to experience was that the elevator lifts are very fast…they travel at 3.5-7 meters per second so one can travel from the bottom floor of the car park to the very top floor 88 in just under 90 seconds! The Petronas tower buildings were built on the world’s deepest building foundations…104 concrete piles, ranging from 60 to 114 meters (197 to 374 ft) deep, were bored into the ground. A concrete raft foundation was constructed around the piles with a depth of over 15 feet- To achieve this they had to continuously pour concrete for over 2 days for each tower! Put into perspective, this meant that a concrete truck arrived every 2.5 minutes like clockwork & didn’t stop for 54 hours…and then they had to do it again for the other tower. AMAZING!
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