The Petronas Towers consist primarily of office space, some of which is dedicated to the Petronas company, an oil company owned by Malaysia. In addition to office space, these towers are also contain Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra's concert hall and two Muslim prayer rooms.
The Petronas Towers were designed by Cesar Pelli and Associates in a geometric pattern consistent with Muslim heritage in consideration for the Islamic population on Malaysia. It took five years and more than $800 million to construct. The doors of the Petronas Towers opened in 1997. To accommodate the mass number of people that can be in these buildings at any one time, high-speed double-decker elevators are able to share a single elevator shaft. The bottom elevator services floors 1 through 41 while the top elevator services floors 42 through 88. Each elevator is designated for either even or odd numbered floors and is capable of carrying 26 people at a time. Each tower contains 29 double-decker elevators.
The architectural design of the Petronas Towers features circles where two rotated squares intersect, a geometric pattern symbolizing unity, harmony, stability and rationality. The circles are largest at the base of the building and get smaller and smaller, with the smallest circles at the top.
Each of the Petronas Towers is 88 towers high, for a total of 1,240 feet. On top of each tower sits a pinnacle, that gives the tower a total height of 1,482 feet. These two towers are next to each other and include 191.6 foot sky bridges at both the 41st and 42nd floors to connect the two buildings. Each of the Petronas Towers is 4.6 million square feet.
The communications of these towers are among the most advanced in the world technologically. Engineers created a cabling system that allows outside communication as well as inter-building communications. To accommodate the number of offices contained within these towers, multiple routers and service providers are used to maximize connectivity speed. The Central Telecommunications Office provides everything businesses need, including email, video conferencing, telephone services, and technology applications.
