Construction on the tower began in January 2004 and ended with the opening in January 2009 after 22 million man-hours of work. The building contains more than 3.552 million square feet of concrete, 39,000 tons of steel and the aluminum content of five Airbus A380 super jumbos.
The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building and the tallest freestanding structure in the world at 2,716.5 feet tall. With this feat come several other records, including the highest number of stories, occupied floor, observation deck and elevator system in the world. The design for the building was developed by the architect Adrian Smith of Chicago's Skidmore, Owings & Merill LLP who mixed traditional Islamic architectural elements and the structural form of the desert Hymenocallis flower, which is native to the area. The tower is more than twice the height of the Empire State Building in New York.
The function of the Burj Khalifa is both symbolic and practical. Since 1980, Dubai has risen from the desert out of nothing into one of the world's most modern and stylish cities and a beacon of possibility in the Middle East. As an address the Burj Khalifa is home to commercial office space, super-luxury residences and the five-star Armani Hotel.
