[9][10] The 88-floor towers are constructed largely of reinforced concrete, with a steel and glass facade designed to resemble motifs found in Islamic art, a reflection of Malaysia's Muslim religion.

[11] Another Islamic influence on the design is that the cross section of the towers is based on a Rub el Hizb, albeit with circular sectors added to meet office space requirements.

Planning on the Petronas Towers started on 1 January 1992 and included rigorous tests and simulations of wind and structural loads on the design.

Seven years of construction followed at the former site of the original Selangor Turf Club, beginning on 1 March 1993 with excavation, which involved moving 500 truckloads of earth every night to dig down 30 metres (98 ft) below the surface.

The building was officially opened by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, on 31 August 1999.

The raft is 4.6 metres (15 ft) thick, weighs 32,500 tonnes (35,800 tons) and held the world record for the largest concrete pour until 2007.

[18] As a result of the Malaysian government specifying that the buildings be completed in six years, two construction consortia were hired to meet the deadline, one for each tower.

Due to the huge cost of importing steel, the towers were constructed on a cheaper radical design of super high-strength reinforced concrete.

[28] A number of companies have offices in Tower Two, including SapuraOMV Upstream (Sarawak) Inc., Huawei Technologies, AVEVA, Al Jazeera English, Carigali Hess, Bloomberg, Boeing, IBM, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, McKinsey & Co, WIPRO Limited, TCS, HCLTech, Krawler, Microsoft, The Agency (a modelling company) and Reuters.

[29] The Petronas Philharmonic Hall, also built at the base of the towers, is frequently associated with Suria KLCC's floorspace.

During holidays or celebration days, Suria KLCC is the top spot to see the decorations especially at the main entrances and also in Centre Court.

Spanning 17 acres (6.9 ha) below the building is the KLCC Park with jogging and walking paths, a fountain with incorporated light show, wading pools, and a children's playground.

Dynamic analyses were performed and iterated to support the final design by studying the structural behavior of the twin towers to time-varying loads such as earthquakes and wind.

[36] The total evacuation triggered by a bomb hoax on 12 September 2001 (the day after the September 11 attacks destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City) showed that the bridge would not be useful if both towers need to be emptied simultaneously, as the capacity of the staircases was insufficient for such an event.

To reach an odd-numbered floor from ground level, passengers must take an escalator to the upper deck of the lift.