The Petronas Towers

Before traveling to Kuala Lumpur, I had heard of the Petronas Twin Towers, of course. They held the title for world’s tallest building for six years, when in 2004 Taipei 101 topped them. They are 1483 feet tall (that’s 451.9 meters). The world’s current tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is almost twice as high. However the Petronas Towers remain the tallest twin towers and remain rather impressive.

Despite having seen plenty of pictures of the towers, I was not ready for how much they would impress me in real life. It might be because they’re the tallest buildings I’ve seen in person. Maybe it’s the really cool architecture, based in Islāmic art. Having said that, I’m going to show you pictures anyway, because they look cool. Still I bet you’ll find them cooler in person.

The towers were finished in 1998. Tower One, the west tower, is used by Petronas (short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad), a government-owned oil and gas company.

Tower 2, the east tower, has office space for lease by other companies and is used by many companies such as Reuters, Al Jazeera English, Boeing, IBM, and Microsoft.

At the bottom of the buildings lies Suria KLCC, a big fancy shopping mall. It’s connected to the KLCC Light Rail (LRT) stop.

There’s also a 17 acre park around the towers, with a great fountain and a kid’s playground, as well as walking paths.

There’s a skybridge between the two towers at the 41st and 42nd floors. You can go up on the skybridge if you are willing to stand in line for tickets really early in the morning – something like 7 AM (I’m not sure what the best time is, but the office opens at 8:30 so it’ll need to be before then). They only let about 1000 visitors up a day. Tickets used to be free but are now RM 10 ($3.30) [NOTE: Can someone confirm this? Most internet resources still say it's free but some are saying it isn't anymore - apparently very recent].

You can also buy a ticket for the observation deck on the 86th floor, which costs RM 40 ($13).

I didn’t go up the towers, but I did go look at them multiple times. We ate at Suria KLCC on our second day in KL and marveled at the towers. We also came back to buy a book and then eat at a nearby restaurant on our last night, so I got to see them both during the day and at night.

One thing I find interesting about the towers is that Tower 1 was built by a Japanese company, and Tower 2 was built by two South Korean companies (one of which was Samsung’s construction arm). I wonder if they raced or if one tower is considered better than the other here in Korea.

I definitely recommend going to look at them. They are super cool, and great photography subjects. They are lit up really nicely at night as well.

These pictures of me and Jeff in front of the towers kind of look like we’re in front of a green screen. I couldn’t figure out how to make it look more like we were really there, but I kind of like it.

Finally I love to do interesting or funny perspective shots, and I didn’t neglect to do them here.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this overload of Petronas tower photos. I enjoyed taking them!

What’s the coolest building you’ve seen?