Burj Khalifa

The tallest skyscraper in the world

The skyscraper is located in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and was completed in 2010 and is the tallest building in the world. It stands 829.8m (2722ft) tall and a roof height of 828m including a 244m spire.

It was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill with the design derived from Islamic architecture. It was to be the centrepiece of a large-scale mixed-use development including parkland, skyscrapers, Dubai Mall and the artificial Burj Khalifa lake although in the early planning it was meant to be completely residential.

The decision to build Burj Khalifa was based on a government decision to diversify the economy to service and tourism based. The tower was known as Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower) until its official opening and was renamed in honour of the ruler of Abu Dhabi Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. It is surrounded by 27 acre (11 ha) park designed by landscape architects SWA Group.

It holds several world records:

Outside there is a fountain system built at cost of Dh 800million ($217 million) it is illuminated by 6600 lights and 50 projectors it is 270m long and shoot water 150m (500ft) into the air accompanied by a range of classical and contemporary Arabic music. It is the second largest choregraphed fountain.

There is alsoan outdoor observation deck opened on 5th Januaru 2010 on 124th floor at the time the highest in the world. Then it opened 148th floor sky level at 55m (1821ft) again giving it the title of the highest observation deck in the world - this was until the Shanghal tower opened in June 2016.

The official opening was 4th January 2010 it featured 10,000 fireworks and light beams projected onto and around the tower.

It has been used by several experienced base jumpers for both authorised and unauthorised attempts. In 2011 Alain ‘Spiderman’ Robert scaled the outside of the Burj Khalifa it took 6 hours.