YES. IT'S TRUE!
I find to be a fact that a number of you do not accept the assertion that the tallest building in the world is not located in the United States.
I am especially thankful for the fact that so many of you refrained from writing to me saying I was in error when I mentioned that fact recently.
Does it hurt so much not to be “first” in everything?
I can understand some such feeling because here has been some controversy associated with this matter of measuring buildings...short or tall. We abide by rules in such matters and while it might seem better if the rules all were fashioned to agree with the way we want it done,. Then, there's no reason for measuring tapes.
Such regulations are established by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The rule is that spires count but antennae do not. Even though they do not, as a rule, contain floors or rooms, spires do count officially. Remember when ocean liners were competing to see which could be the longest. They did it by extended the bow far ahead or by adding a few feet the aft deck area. Both, if necessary.
The Petronas Towers, Kuala Lampur, Malaysia were completed in 1998 at a cost of around $l. 6 billion. They stand 1,834 feet above the ground and there are eight-eight stories. The two towers are joined together at the 42nd floor by a “flexible” skybridge. The building are of concrete and steel and facing materials are aluminum and stainless steel. If you saw a Sean Connery film called “Entrapment” you realize that, seen from above, the floor plan forms an eight-pointed star said to have been inspired by traditional Malaynese and Islamic patterns..
Chicago's Sears Tower is 33 feet short of the l,487 feet set by the Petronas Towers. To keep the argument going, the top floor, occupied in the Sears building is actually 200 feet higher than the top floor of the Petronas Towers and the antennae stretch even higher. If you ignore the rule that towers count but antennae do not, you can keep the discussion going for some time.
Regardless of who wins, the Petronas Towers are a marvel of construction using almost thirty-seven thousand tons of steel and fitted with thirty-two thousand windows. The window material was made by DuPont and that was how I became aware of the fact that the towers were being built, from reading about DuPont's part in the venture in a company publication. For some reason, we have not encouraged our media to mention the existence of Malaysia's Petronas Towers.
The highest man-made structure in the world is The National Tower, in Toronto, Canada. That is good to know in case the Towers argument lags a bit and needs a fresh angle or shift of emphasis to give you time to get off the hook on the tallest building question.
A.L.M. November 9, 2002 [c495wds]
