Dubai opens world’s tallest skyscraper
DUBAI:The financially troubled Gulf emirate of Dubai on Monday opened
the world’s tallest building, a glistening concrete, glass and steel
pinnacle rising 828 metres (2,717 feet) out of the desert sands.
Blazing fireworks rippled up and down the massive structure after it
was officially opened by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum.
Tallest building
* Rises 828 metres out of the desert sands
* Renamed Buri khalifa, in honour of
United Arab Emirates President |
Known during construction as Burj Dubai, Sheikh Mohammad renamed the
building Burj Khalifa, in honour of United Arab Emirates President
Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan.
Sheikh Khalifa is also ruler of Abu Dhabi, the UAE emirate which came
to Dubai’s help late last year to the tune of 10 billion dollars to bail
out troubled property developer Nakheel, a subsidiary of Dubai World.
“Today the United Arab Emirates achieves the tallest building ever
created by the hand of man... and this great project deserves to carry
the name of a great man. Today I inaugurate Burj Khalifa,” Sheikh
Mohammad said.
Parachutists bearing the UAE colours of red, green, black and white
then touched down as a giant portrait of Sheikh Khalifa was projected on
an outer wall of the structure which cost 1.5 billion dollars to erect.
In the fireworks spectacle that followed, blossoms of flames crackled
up and down the huge building and out into the Dubai night sky, followed
later by lasers sweeping the horizon from the tower’s many levels.
Dubai hopes the opening of the Burj Khalifa the latest in a series of
grandiose projects will burnish an image tarnished by its crippling debt
woes.
The needle-shaped tower, described by its developer as a “vertical
city” as it dwarfs existing skyscrapers, boasts new limits in design and
construction.
Emaar Properties, the partly government-owned developer, had
maintained the suspense about the skyscraper’s final height, saying only
that it exceeded 800 metres (2,625 feet).
The construction of the tower, which began in 2004, “cost 1.5 billion
dollars,” Emaar chairman Mohammed Alabbar said.
Burj Khalifa has more than 200 floors, only 160 of which will be
inhabited, while the remaining floors are for services.
It has a total built-up area of 5.67 million square feet, including
1.85 million square feet of residential space and more than 300,000
square feet of prime office space, Emaar said.
This amounts to 1,044 apartments and 49 floors of office space,
served by 57 lifts. It also has a hotel carrying the Georgio Armani
logo.
“We have sold 90 percent of the project,” said Alabbar.
Bill Baker, a structural and civil engineer and partner in
Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), which designed the
tower, said it has set a new benchmark.
“We thought that it would be slightly taller than the existing
tallest tower of Taipei 101. (Emaar) kept on asking us to go higher but
we didn’t know how high we could go,” he said. “We were able to tune the
building like we tune a music instrument.
As we went higher and higher and higher, we discovered that by doing
that process... we were able to reach heights much higher than we ever
thought we could.”
AFP
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