Burj Khalifa Base & Tower Pavilion

Why is it significant?

Stand at the granite base of Burj Khalifa and look straight up the gleaming silver flutes toward the needle-like pinnacle 828 meters above.

Key Facts

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Stand at the granite base of Burj Khalifa and look straight up the gleaming silver flutes toward the needle-like pinnacle 828 meters above. Inaugurated on January 4, 2010, this colossal skyscraper shattered every international height record, standing nearly twice as tall as the Empire State Building. Designed by architect Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the tower's tri-petal footprint was inspired by the Hymenocallis, a delicate desert spider lily native to the region. Its modular, Y-shaped stepped profile spirals dramatically skyward in twenty-six setbacks, shedding high-altitude vortex winds with extraordinary aerodynamic grace.

The construction statistics border on the mythical: over three hundred and thirty thousand cubic meters of high-density concrete and thirty-nine thousand tons of steel rebar were used. At the peak of construction, more than twelve thousand workers from over one hundred countries laboured simultaneously around the clock. The tower's exterior is wrapped in twenty-six thousand hand-cut reflective glass panels, engineered with dual silver coatings to reflect ninety percent of the desert's scorching infrared heat radiation.

The double-decker observation elevators are engineering marvels in their own right, ascending at an astonishing speed of ten meters per second, or twenty-two miles per hour. Passengers reach the 'At The Top' observation deck on Level 124 in just sixty seconds, feeling their ears pop as they climb higher than the clouds. The tower is so immense that people watching the sunset at ground level can take the elevator to the top and watch the sun set a second time over the horizon.

During winter mornings, the upper spire pierces through low-lying coastal fog banks, making the tower appear to float entirely unsupported above a sea of white clouds.

Walk northwest past the grand lobby entrance toward the boulevard to view the celebrated 'Together' marble sculpture.