Petronas Twin Towers

Where the steel facades of the two towers stand, there was once a racecourse with tracks, grandstands, and stables of the Selangor Turf Club. Races took place here for almost one hundred years, until the club moved out of town and a vast vacant site remained in the center. Now divisions of the national oil company PETRONAS (Petroliam Nasional Berhad) work in the first tower, while the second houses other offices. The skybridge between the forty-first and forty-second floors leads to a shared lobby, meeting rooms, and a prayer room.

At the beginning of the nineteen nineties, Malaysian entrepreneur Ananda Krishnan proposed that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad build two eighty-eight-story towers. Krishnan became the project’s developer: he wanted to turn a vast site in central Kuala Lumpur into a business district.

The site was already tied to large sums of money. Through his company, Krishnan acquired almost forty hectares for one hundred ten million ringgit and paid the city another three hundred twenty million ringgit to change the land’s designation. Before him, this was the racecourse of the Selangor Turf Club. The club held races on Ampang Road for almost one hundred years, but by the start of construction it had moved out of town. In place of the tracks, grandstands, and stables, a site rare for central Kuala Lumpur became available, large enough for an entire new district.

The scale was such that Krishnan began looking for partners. Mahathir sought to ensure that the principal participant remained Malaysian, and proposed bringing in the state oil and gas company PETRONAS (Petroliam Nasional Berhad). For the company itself, the site solved a practical problem: its divisions then occupied several buildings in different parts of the city, while management planned to bring them together.

PETRONAS (Petroliam Nasional Berhad) bought fifty-one percent of Krishnan’s company for six hundred eighty-one million ringgit. The company was renamed KLCC Holdings, meaning the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) holding company. This gave the oil and gas company control over the project, and the future skyscrapers its name. PETRONAS is an abbreviation of Petroliam Nasional Berhad, the official name of Malaysia’s national oil company.

Krishnan brought the project to completion, and in two thousand two sold the remaining forty-nine percent to PETRONAS (Petroliam Nasional Berhad). The amount of the transaction was not disclosed. Afterward, the entrepreneur left the owner company, and PETRONAS (Petroliam Nasional Berhad) gained full control over the district that had risen on the site of the racecourse.

The first tower still serves as PETRONAS (Petroliam Nasional Berhad) headquarters. The second houses offices of other companies. The skybridge between the forty-first and forty-second floors connects the shared facilities of the two towers: an elevator lobby, meeting rooms, and a prayer room. The official address of Petroliam Nasional Berhad still lists the first tower, Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur City Centre.