Article Surfing Archive

One of the most interesting places to visit in Asia is Kuala Lumpur and one of the major attractions there is the Petronas twin towers. These magnificent structures stand 458 meters tall and have 88 floors. The foundation of these towers stretches 120 meters underground. The towers themselves are made primarily of reinforced concrete and steel with a glass fa'ade. Construction on these towers was finished in 1996.

Visitors are allowed to go to the 41st floor to see the sky bridge. From this vantage point you can see the park below and on a clear day all the surrounding cities of Kuala Lumpur. In order to get into the sky bridge it is necessary to get a pass. These passes are given to about 1400 people every day, and usually they are all distributed before noon, so make sure you get there very early to ensure that you manage to get one.

In a building this massive it would seem logical that the elevator system be huge and I can assure you that you will not be disappointed. There are 3 groups of elevators that together service all the floors in the building. The elevator cars are two stories, so one story handles the even floors and the other handles the odd floors. These elevators are also specially equipped with a number of safety devices. The one that is the most interested is the way that one elevator can go up beside another elevator and evacuate people from it if it gets stuck or jammed between floors.

The petronas Company is the one and only tenant of tower one. The other tower called Tower 2 is available for rent to other tenants'. Currently Accenture, Bloomberg, Boeing, IBM, Microsoft, Reuters, and a large number of smaller firms all call this tower home.

At the base of the towers there is a shopping plaza called Suria KLCC. It has a large number of shops featuring all kinds of different merchandise. On the 4th floor you will find the petroleum development centre.

Just outside the plaza is the KLCC Park. This park has jogging and walking paths, a wading pool, and a children's playground. It has a very large water fountain with built in lighting that puts on a fantastic show, as the water blasts high into the air. Getting to the towers is easy. Take the Putra train right to the towers.