Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur
The Petronas Twin Towers were built between 1993 and 1996 on the site of the former Selangor Turf Club racecourse, the centrepiece of the Kuala Lumpur City Centre development. Designed by Argentine-American architect Cesar Pelli around an eight-pointed Rub el Hizb floor plan drawn from Islamic geometry, the 88-storey, 451.9-metre towers were raised by two rival consortiums, one Japanese and one South Korean, racing tower against tower. On completion they dethroned Chicago's Sears Tower as the world's tallest buildings, a title they held until Taipei 101 in 2004, and they remain the tallest twin towers in the world. Officially opened by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on 31 August 1999, the towers marked their Silver Jubilee in 2024 with the CTBUH Global Icon Award.
Menara Berkembar Petronas
Official Malay name
Petronas Towers / Twin Towers
Common international usage
KLCC
Colloquial, after the surrounding Kuala Lumpur City Centre district
1991
Cesar Pelli wins the international design competition for the centrepiece of the Kuala Lumpur City Centre project, a 'city within a city' planned on the 39-hectare site of the former Selangor Turf Club racecourse. Planning and structural testing begin on 1 January 1992.
1 March 1993
Construction begins. Test boring had found half the site sat on decayed limestone, so the towers were shifted 61 metres to rest entirely on softer rock, and excavation crews removed some 500 truckloads of earth every night to dig 30 metres down.
1994
The foundations are completed: 104 concrete piles per tower reaching 60 to 114 metres deep, among the deepest in the world, capped by a 4.6-metre-thick raft. Each raft took 13,200 cubic metres of concrete poured non-stop over 54 hours, a world record for a continuous pour that stood until 2007.
1994-1996
Two consortiums race skyward, one tower each: Tower 1 under Japan's Hazama Corporation and Tower 2 under South Korea's Samsung C&T. Averaging a floor every four days in high-strength reinforced concrete, the Samsung team tops out first despite starting about a month later.
July 1995
The 58.4-metre, 750-tonne double-deck skybridge is lifted 170 metres into place between levels 41 and 42 over three days, one of the project's most delicate operations.
1 March 1996
The 73.5-metre stainless steel spires are installed, bringing both towers to 451.9 metres. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat declares them the world's tallest buildings, dethroning Chicago's Sears Tower in a ruling that ignited global debate because spires count toward height while antennas do not.
1997
The towers are completed and occupancy begins, with Petronas and its subsidiaries filling Tower 1 and multinationals taking Tower 2.
31 August 1999
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad officially opens the Petronas Twin Towers on Malaysia's National Day. The same year, the Hollywood film Entrapment stages its climax on the skybridge, beaming the towers to a worldwide audience.
2004
Taipei 101 takes the world's tallest building title. The Petronas Twin Towers remain the tallest twin towers in the world, a record they still hold.
2023
Merdeka 118 is completed across town at 678.9 metres, taking the Malaysian height crown, while the Twin Towers keep their global twin-tower record and their place as the icon of the KL skyline.
2024
The towers mark their Silver Jubilee, 25 years since the official opening, and receive the CTBUH Global Icon Award recognising their lasting influence on skyscraper design worldwide.
Rub el Hizb floor plan
Each tower's cross-section is an eight-pointed star formed by two interlocking squares with circular infills, a geometric motif from Islamic art chosen to root the towers in Malaysian Muslim culture.
Double-deck skybridge
The 58.4-metre bridge linking levels 41 and 42 is not rigidly bolted to either tower; it slides on spherical bearings so the towers can sway independently in high winds. Its supporting arch legs give the towers their distinctive gateway silhouette.
High-strength concrete structure
Steel was costly to import, so the towers were engineered in super high-strength reinforced concrete, a material twice as effective as steel at damping sway, though it doubled the weight bearing on the foundations.
Record-setting foundations
104 piles per tower reach as deep as 114 metres, and each 32,500-tonne concrete raft was poured continuously for 54 hours, the world's largest concrete pour until 2007.
Stainless steel and glass facade
The towers are wrapped in ribbons of stainless steel extrusions and laminated glass, with sunshades and vision panels patterned to echo motifs of Islamic art while managing Malaysia's tropical glare.
KLCC Park
The 20-hectare park at the towers' feet was the final major work of celebrated Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx, planted with thousands of native Malaysian trees around a lake and the Lake Symphony fountains.
Construction ran from 1 March 1993 to 1996, when the spires were installed on 1 March 1996. Occupancy began in 1997, and Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad officially opened the towers on 31 August 1999, Malaysia's National Day.
Argentine-American architect Cesar Pelli won the 1991 international design competition. He based each tower's floor plan on the Rub el Hizb, an eight-pointed star from Islamic geometry formed by two interlocking squares, softened with circular infills.
The towers stand on part of the former Selangor Turf Club, Kuala Lumpur's horse racing course, which was redeveloped from 1992 as the 39-hectare Kuala Lumpur City Centre. During planning, the towers were shifted 61 metres from the original spot after test boring found decayed limestone under half the site.
Yes. On completion in 1996 they were declared the world's tallest at 451.9 metres, dethroning Chicago's Sears Tower in a controversial ruling because spires count toward official height while antennas do not. Taipei 101 took the title in 2004, but the Petronas Twin Towers remain the tallest twin towers in the world today.
Each tower had its own contractor racing the other: Tower 1 was built by a Japanese consortium led by Hazama Corporation and Tower 2 by a South Korean consortium led by Samsung C&T. Both teams averaged a new floor roughly every four days, and the Samsung team finished first despite starting about a month later.
Importing structural steel was prohibitively expensive, so the engineers used super high-strength reinforced concrete, which local contractors knew well and which damps building sway about twice as effectively as steel. The trade-off is weight: the concrete towers bear down on their foundations with roughly double the load of a comparable steel building.
The 58.4-metre double-deck bridge between levels 41 and 42 lets people move between towers without descending to ground level and serves as an emergency escape route. It is deliberately not fixed rigidly to either tower, sliding on bearings so each tower can sway independently in the wind. The 750-tonne structure was hoisted 170 metres into place over three days in July 1995.
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