In 5 pages this paper examines Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's Petronas Towers in an overview of its design, construction, and cultural importance. Two sources are cited in the bibliography.
Name of Research Paper File: JL5_JLpetronas.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur are unique in the world of architecture, besides the fact that the construction has the distinction of being the worlds tallest building. According to an
article in the Malaysia Star (2002), it had not originally occurred to the designers to challenge the record then held by the Sears building in Chicago. It was only when
it was realised that the Twin Towers were only a few metres short of the height of the Chicago skyscraper that the plans were amended, and the size of the
pinnacles increased to give it requisite additional height. However, there are a number of other features of the buildings design and construction which render it unique amongst the worlds skyscrapers.
The planning stage of the Petronas building began in the early
1990s, when a design competition was held to decide on the centrepiece of the Kuala Lumpur City Centre redevelopment project. The government wanted a construction which was particularly Malaysian in
design, but could not specify exactly what form the design should take. Most of the tall buildings which already existed in the city were not particularly distinctive, being constructed in
a somewhat anonymous international style which was not particularly Malaysian. The winning architects, Cesar Pelli and Associates, could not, therefore, find anything in the existing indigenous architectural forms to use
as inspiration for the new building. Pelli therefore turned to traditional Islamic forms of art: the original design for the building was based on a twelve-pointed star, later modified to
an eight-pointed star since this was felt to be more typically Malaysian than the twelve-pointed version more commonly associated with Arabic design.