The Petronas Towers, Symbol of Malaysian Globalization

Petronas Towers as seen from the Menara Kuala Lumpur

When the Petronas Towers were topped out in 1996, it became the tallest skyscraper outside of the Western world for the first time in history. The Towers, part of the Kuala Lumpur City Center (KLCC) complex, stands out as the center of international Malaysian identity. Once the tallest building in the world, the metallic-clad complex now looms over a gathering of towers up to its shoulder height. Its neighboring skyscrapers validate the promise of the Petronas Towers, that it would declare to the world that Malaysia is open for business and turn the Malaysian capital city into a global hub. While its title as the tallest building in the city is soon to be taken over by the construction of the Warisan Merdeka Tower, I want to look into why the Petronas Towers matter to Malaysia and to the world. While the towers may have taken away the title of the tallest skyscraper in the world from the Western world, the goal was to prove to the world that Malaysia was comparable to the west, or ‘world-class’ in the words of then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Menara Kuala Lumpur, soon to be the second tallest building in the world, and tallest in Southeast Asia

A Brief Colonial History of Kuala Lumpur

To understand Kuala Lumpur, it’s important to understand that its population growth was relatively recent. It first started out as a tin mining city in 1857. The city’s name literally translates to “muddy confluence,” a reference to its conditions at the time. The British Empire was already present on the Malay peninsula, and indeed the Dutch were in the region prior to the English, and the Portuguese as far back as the 1500s. It would not be until 1874 that the British would come to Kuala Lumpur and claim it for their Empire.

When the British came to power in Kuala Lumpur, they cemented their authority with the construction of a Government House, and an adjacent field named the Selangor Club Padang. The Padang and Government House was the center of the city for this reign. So in 1957, when Malaysia transitioned from Colonial rule to its independent government in 1957, it was at the Selangor Club Padang field that citizens gathered to watch the removal of the Union flag, the symbol of British authority, from the Government House, which is now named the Sultan Abdul Samad Building.

Petronas Towers overlooking the KLCC Park

Post-Colonial Urban Reinvention

Following this, Kuala Lumpur’s population grew massively from 317,000 in 1957 to nearly eight million now, with much of that growth occurring between 1970 and 1990, (UN). In that time, the city has had to grapple with balancing the preservation of its heritage with the chaos of developing a city capable of containing millions of people for the first time.

Before the development of the Petronas Towers and the KLCC, the site was once occupied by a colonial horse racing track with a similar name, the Selangor Turf Club. The city’s exploding population was the impetus for further scrutiny into the efficiency of urban planning, and by the early 80s, it was clear that the horse racing track would need to move to make way for something that could serve a city of millions. The question then, was how the land should be used. “The former racecourse, then, had been the site of contest over definitions of appropriate post-colonial urban development long before work on KLCC even began," (Bundell, pg 13). Popular opinion was in favor of developing a major inner-city park, in a way that brings to mind the history of Manhattan’s Central Park for me.

When the government began to hint that they were planning to develop an enormous urban project, people were not happy. There were “fears that rather than being ‘opened’ to the public, the former colonial racecourse would be developed into real estate as part of the GTA,” (Bundell, pg 15). Those opposed to the real estate option were afraid of the same consequences which made its cheerleaders hopeful. The opposition feared that the introduction of global capitalism would deteriorate the environmental and social landscape. Those in favor saw it as a means of alleviating the stresses of an expanding economy. In the end, what stands today represents a compromise, the massive urban project centered around a park smaller than what could have been.

North-facing facade of the Petronas Towers

The Mega-Development in the Modern World

The Petronas Towers represents within Malaysia, “the relationship between the forces of globalization, capitalism, and post-colonialism that are at work in the architecture of the cities of East Asia today,” (Sklair, pg 27). The relationship between the project and the city is unlike any other big project in the city. Global developments like it are marketed as providing travelers sanctuary from the cultural differences of foreign cities, as a way of avoiding danger. Conrad Hilton himself described his hotels as ‘a little America for upper middle-class travelers,” (pg 28).

The 21st-century urban mega-development, more than anything, is an unprecedented high-stakes gamble. While developers like to say they’re developing new city centers, that’s not a guarantee so much as an ambition. Such projects are a risky bet, waging billions of dollars along with human capital and physical resources to try and redefine the city. The Petronas Towers alone cost an estimated USD$1.6 billion, (CNN). At the time, it was amongst the most expensive buildings in the world. Today, it is dwarfed by what is currently the most expensive building, the Abraj Al Bait, at USD$15 billion.

Petronas Towers and a Malaysian National Identity

National identity is a social construct that is naturally or intentionally designed to streamline the understanding of a simplistic narrative about a nation with the intent of expressing a broad unity based on cultural contrasts with other nations. Mega developments can serve as one of the most persuasive elements in solidifying a national identity. This framing is instructive for understanding why the Petronas Tower is so important.

Malaysia’s 5th and 7th Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad declared, "the symbolic role of Petronas Towers in realizing a state vision of national development, the so-called Vision 2020." Vision 2020 is Mahathir’s plan to transform the country into a self-sufficient and fully developed country by the year 2020. The Petronas Towers assumes a leading role in representing Malaysia internationally because it is the node that connects Malaysia with the globalized world. Following their completion, "The KLCC set a trend for high-profile infrastructure projects with 'mega characteristics...geared towards and symbolic of a new national development strategy associated with the Prime Minister," (pg 6). The construction of the Petronas Towers allowed Malaysia to stand out as a location for investment where other countries might not be noticed.

View of The Exchange 106, a new mega-development in Kuala Lumpur

Global understanding Local

The architect, Cesar Pelli, described the building as being, "based on Islamic geometric traditions," which, "convey a specific sense of their tropical locale," (Cesar Pelli and Associates, 1997: 29). Specifically, the building uses a sixteen-point star within the popular Islamic two-dimensional style and raises it up into a three-dimensional tower in a style similar to India’s Qutb Minar. This serves to monumentalize a single aspect of Islamic art from a broad petri dish of traditions in a way that operated within a notion of ‘local’ unique to globalization. As writer Arif Dirlik articulates, “the local itself is commodified [for globalization]…in a dialogue that is not between the global and the local but between the global and the global talking about the local,” (pg 37). The reference to Malaysia's history as an Islamic majority does not eclipse the reality of the country, which is religiously diverse. The whole complex reflects a style ubiquitous across the world in the late 20th and early 21st Century, which can be understood through this excerpt from Richard Marshall’s Emergent Urbanity in 2003:

Global urban projects are typically very large and expensive urban projects at the forefront of a nation’s development agenda. These projects are produced with the purpose of enabling a stronger interrelationship with the global economy…the projects represent relatively narrow visions. The reason for this is simple. There is a rather particular environment that is deemed appropriate to attract and keep the global elite and it should come as no surprise that these spaces are indeed remarkably alike.

Given the cultural and religious significance imbued in the towers for the country, and the strictly economic significance of the tower to its namesake oil company, "the Petronas Towers may thus be read as representative of twin strands of Vision 2020 nationalism: Malays taking their rightful place in the national economy without threatening to displace national 'others': and a united Malaysia 'standing tall' in the world of nations," (pg 13).

The Petronas Towers represents the late 20th and early 21st-century post-colonial era of development. It represents how control of the city center is moving away from the citizens and into the hands of a centralized authority, be it a city government or an international developer. The mall at the tower’s base, Suria KLCC, is owned by the KLCC Property Berhad, the property investment arm of the Petronas oil company, and CBRE Global Investors, an international real estate investment manager overseeing $113 billion in assets.

View of the skybridge connecting the two Petronas towers

Conclusion

The reason why it is so important to understand the role of globalization within the city is that it is much more than just a passive force. It has become a system for proselytizing capitalism and generating wealth through global expansion, which can be credited with why cities from China to New York are facing similar problems. Globalization has become a tale of two worlds, a Dickensian level of disparity which poses an existential threat for everyone

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