Burj Khalifa: Some things you need to know about the tallest building in the world

If you are traveling to Dubai, or are in the airport in transit for several hours between flights, visiting the largest building in the world is an essential experience and we will tell you everything you need to know to do it.

Dubai is a city of contrasts, of giant aquariums in shopping malls, of sand dunes and covered ski slopes, of Arab traditions and Western consumerism. Dubai is the right city to host the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa at 828m.

How is Dubai, the city where the Burj Khalifa was built

Dubai is the capital of the Emirate of Dubai and the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, the state made up of seven small Gulf emirates. The union is strength, especially if you are small but have oil.

Although it is not the capital of the UAE, that institutional honor belongs to Abu Dhabi, it is an important financial center and, what interests many travelers, one of the main points where airlines fly to Asia from Europe (although Turkish Airlines is an exception, as it does it in Istanbul if, for example, you fly to Thailand).

Dubai is a huge city, a narrow strip of steel and concrete bordering the Persian Gulf and extending horizontally and vertically, although the lack of building land does not seem to be a problem. It is not easy, nor recommended, to walk around Dubai given the distances between points of interest and the usual temperature (which ranges from “very hot” to “stifling heat”). Especially when there is a network of Metro and bus lines that take you anywhere enjoying the air conditioning.

How was the construction of the Burj Khalifa

Neither Dubai nor the United Arab Emirates believed that oil was the economic future of the area, although reserves and production remain constant and for many more years than the most dire predicted. To diversify its sources of income, Dubai used its oil money to invest in real estate and financial assets around the world. In addition to offering a virtual cushion against the falls and swings of the price of oil, it helped to place Dubai in a prominent position in the world financial market.

With this new role of the city came a flash urban development and part of it was reflected in the launch of an urban area called “Downtown Dubhai” with nine hotels, a gigantic shopping center (the Dubai Mall, the largest in the world), 19 habitable skyscrapers, thousands of homes, a park, an artificial lake and the Burj Khalifa.

The design of the Burj Khalifa was entrusted to the same company that had designed the Sears Tower in Chicago and the One World Trade Center in New York, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), an American engineering, architecture and urban development company, who based his original design on another building of his own, Tower Palace 3 in Seoul (South Korea). The Burj Khalifa rises as a central core on three spiral bases, inspired by a flower and Islamic architectural elements, and with helical levels that decrease in number as the height increases. Interested in visiting Burj Khalifa? You can save your money by taking Dubai Holidays!