A brief background & development history on KLCC ("The Kuala Lumpur City Centre") & Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - The notorious traffic jam along Jalan Ampang back in the 1970 ~ mid of 1990 during any race day at the Selangor Turf Club’s course where the current entire KLCC locates was a distant memory now. Widely seen as a brain child of Malaysia's retired Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohammed - it was another of his conceptual thinking in transforming the "unproductive" once-a-month utilities into a visionary "City within the City" concept. (For a brief History of the vacated Turf Club, Click Here or Here - the latter was actually MIR's content writing of our S. Puvaneswary (Ms.) while we developed for Petronas Mymesra Official Site). Hence, an international opened bid was called, the eventual winning entry was work by California based architectural firm, Klages Carter Vail & Partners ("KCV" - the Company was annexed by Denver-based RNL Design in 2000 in a successful corporate merger). KCV was an active player in the Pacific Rim. Many local buildings actually bore their signatures as well.
menara Dion, KL Equitorial_melaka.jpg RHB Traning Center, KL
Menara Dion, a 63,500 square meter high-rise office building Jalan Sultan Ismail, Kuala Lumpur Equatorial Hotel, Melacca. a 520-room business, conference, and resort hotel located within the heart of Malacca's historical district, RHB Training centre, .a1.7 million square foot facility located in Kuala Lumpur for RHB Banking Group
Oooi.. Come to think of it, what has happened to our local architects ? These are not entirely another larger-scale KLCC-class development projects - Malaysia is not short of creative talents, it should be the other way round, instead of letting foreign architectural firms to assault our market, so- buck up man...
The point of interest in this discussion was, the early accepted proposal was actually slightly differed from what is going on around the existing structures at the entire KLCC development project. The Petronas Twin Towers, as seen from the 3-D mockup was actually quite "boring" as compared with the current structural design, isn't it ?
RNLmapB.jpg RNLmapA.jpg Image LINKed to external site - KLCC.com.my
I am not good at building studies and cannot understand the relation to procedures of awards of contract and plan design and so on. So, it has kept me puzzled between respective roles of Carter Vail & Partners and Cesar Pelli & Associates in the design of KLCC/Twin Towers. Well, it makes a little sense now WHY the official site of KLCC created a portfolio relating to the twin towers' designer. Cesar Pelli of Cesar Pelli & Associates Architects (Home Page).have won quite a number of industrial awards in building designs. Other than the KLCC's Petronas Twin Towers, other thumb prints of his with significant interest are, Canary Wharf, London, World Financial Centre, Manhattan, Carnegie Hall Tower(1991/3), New York City, Owens-Corning World Headquarters, NTT Headquarters (1997), Bank of America Corporate Center, Petronas Towers (1999) + many others.
The entire master plan for KLCC project development around freehold prime property (KLCC: 40.5 hectares - Petronas Twin Towers & Retail: 5.8 hectares with 18,000 m2 each tower - 994,000 m2 total Petronas complex) was focused into seven main sections. i.e. Office Buildings, Hotels, Retails, Convention Centre, Residential, Recreational facilities and Infrastructure. The conceptual redevelopment project was to covert site of the former Selangor Turf Club, a 100-acre horse race track located in the center of Kuala Lumpur's “Golden Triangle, into an integrated, self-contained modern city as well as creating a new landscape for the capital city of Malaysia. The work of first phase was probably began between in 1992/3, with the 1,483 feet, 88-story tall Twin Towers as the center stage of attraction (It surpassed the Sears Tower, Chicago- once held the “world's tallest building” distinction since 1974- by 33 feet.). The various office buildings provides an estimate 11 million sq./ft. space. The retail area, Suria KLCC is a six-levels modern shopping centre with a capacity of approx. 1.5 million sq. ft was another highlight. The third, a 49-storey Menara Maxis was a little coincidental - because it was also the headquarters of the businessman, T Ananda Krishnan who has been given the task of undertook this mega-project. Mr. Ananda, was relatively unknown to even many Malaysian during the early '90 because his core business activities was centered around United Kingdom where he primarily engaged in oil & gas, properties and others (he even owned an studio in Hollywood for Cartoon movies and other businesses in countries like Australia etc.). Basically, the man was handpicked by Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad as his self-establshed international creditability was part of the element in ensuring the RM3 billion (US1.00 to approx. RM3.70/80) project will get international/local funding. As the projected completion may take 7-8 years, the trade off was a series of proprietary business licenses such as award of a lottery operating permit, creating a multimedia/telecommunication empire from scratch to ensure sustainability of business income to support during the duration. That was how the current hugely successful Public Listed establishments of Tanjong PLC (gaming), Maxis (Cellular Phone Operator), Astro (Multimedia & Satellite Communication), Powertek (Oil & Gas - now de-listed, privatized & grouped under Tanjong PLC) & KLCC (Property, Retail and building Management) all took shape during that intensive development era. Despite with an unofficial wealth count, the listed entities of the entire business empire was close to USD 9 Billion and many people even quoted him easily as one of the wealthiest Malaysian today, Mr. Ananda still stays relatively very low profile. Frankly, until I did a search, I am not aware the 30-storey Menara Esso Esso (now called Esso-Mobile) building was part of the entire project. The Mandarin Oriental (Kuala Lumpur) Hotel, one of the handful of Asian hotel that has been voted as the best hotel in a succession of 5 years in Bangkok, was just annexed to the KLCC' Suria Shopping Mall (with an approx. 1.2 million traffic flow of visitors a WEEK !) serves as a logical supplement to this ultramodern project.
A scenic view taken from the Public Children playground at KLCC
Is that all ? No. The first phase of development also included two other sections i.e. a 20-hectare (50-acre) Public Park; two District Cooling Center as well as a Mosque. Phase Two actually comprised of the recently launched of the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre as well as high-end residential project which is under construction now (both on going as at 2005).
As Islam is the official religion of the country existing few smaller nearby locations for Friday's prayer may not be adequate to accommodate enlarged working/tourist community, thus, one of the purpose of the Asy-Syakirin Mosque (Surau" in Bahasa Malaysia) was designed to resolve this issue and provide easy access for Muslim tenants whenever it requires. The interior design, with facade of the dome finished in patterned gypsum ceiling while Islamic carvings and calligraphy as well as external facade of the dome was works of the skilled craftsmen from Uzbekistan. The combined presentation exhibits a strong Islamic feel. The Mosque, is actually a 3-storey multi-levels structure (main hall, the lower hall and the trellis area.) with its main prayer to accommodate approx. 6,000 people. The serene, greenery surroundings of the park helps calm the mind and soothe the soul as worshippers spend time in prayer. The district Cooling Center, on a less significant note architecturally, is meant for air-conditioning and infrastructure works within the vicinity.
Among the mentioned, the spacious 50-acres KLCC's Public Park deserves a separate featured section as its tropical landscaping in the heart of the KLCC development provides an urban sanctuary and lessen the strong sense of commercial touch. Unlike the rest of other more eye-arresting concrete structures, the man who was appointed to design the landscaping of this park was the conceptual idea of a world renowned Brazilian landscape artist, the late Roberto Burle Marx, where this was regarded as one of his last masterpiece. The amenities include a two-acre public (means "free") children's playground, a two-in-one symphony fountain, wading pool, a modern 1.8km a round jogging track that surfaced with Rubberflex® shock absorption and traction necessary for safe, comfortable outdoor running; good shelters and benches, patterned footpaths and sculptures. I was told Mr. Roberto has spent 3 years around the country to identify various species of trees which has resulted relocation of approx. 2000/74 trees/palm/species to this park. Many of the more distinctive species have been labeled and explanation of their respective origin are placed under each of them as references. Out of curiosity, for the last one year (I do jog or walk almost daily during evening as it is just located between my house and office), I don't seem to find Durian, coconut, rambutans and some good representative species, hehe....so, out of respect, sometimes, I 'would still think it lacks a little good input by local landscaping consultants.
klcc-ParkMDM.JPG
Anyway, another striking display of the park is the 2-fountains Lake Symphony which actually locates just outside Suria KLCC. It is programmed to perform 150 magical dramatic animation but only at specific interval time table (the best possible timing was at the evening). So, all these basic info may help someone as a reference point in case you are interested in participating in this showcase.
Larger View @ 264k Jpeg
Seen a Satellite Picture of KLCC before ? Google Map has one..
I am not sure who was the agency who has designed the KLCC corporate logo.