Petronas Towers

Petronas Towers rise in the Kuala Lumpur City Centre, completed in 1998 to a design by the Argentine-American architect Cesar Pelli, working with the structural engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti. The two 88-story towers, linked at the 41st and 42nd floors by a two-story Skybridge, were until 2004 the tallest buildings in the world, and remain the tallest twin towers on Earth. Their floor plan is based on an eight-pointed star derived from Islamic geometric patterning, reflecting Malaysia's status as a majority-Muslim nation, and their stainless steel and glass facade was designed to evoke motifs drawn from traditional Malaysian art. Because local soil conditions could not support the towers' full planned height on conventional foundations, engineers instead drove piles more than 100 meters into bedrock, among the deepest building foundations built anywhere at the time. The towers house the headquarters of Petronas, Malaysia's state oil and gas company, alongside other corporate tenants.