Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Istana Nurul Iman

I'm currently sitting on the 4th floor of the hospital looking out a window that overlooks this palace, the largest residential palace in the world. We drove past it on the way to Tims from the airport and just the front gate is lit brighter than around 100 christmas trees in a small cupboard. Here's some entertaining facts about this monstrosity of a building.
Although the palace is hidden from public view through artful landscaping, satellite views provided by programs such as Google Earth, have increased the public knowledge of the palace's layout. Such images have relayed the existence of two large buildings in the center of the palace and five smaller buildings either adjacent to or nearby the palace center.
Istana Nurul Iman contains 1,788 rooms, 257 bathrooms, and a floor area of 2,152,782 square feet (200,000 m²). Amenities include 5 swimming pools, an air conditioned stable for the Sultan's 200 polo ponies, a 110-car garage, a banquet hall that can be expanded to accommodate up to 5,000 guests, and a mosque accommodating 1,500 people. The palace was built in 1984 at a cost of around $400 million USD and has 564 chandeliers, 51,000 light bulbs, 44 stairwells, and 18 elevators. It is also a home to a car collection that includes custom-made Ferraris and Bentleys as well as 165 Rolls Royces. Its golden domes, designed by Filipino architect Leandro V. Locsin, and vaulted roofs echo Islamic and Malay architectural influences.
Anyone care to become a lightbulb fitter for their first job out of uni? Surely it pays alright.

1 Comments:

Blogger Scotty said...

Yeah the Dalman's love the respect they get over there. White people are sort after and things are dirt cheap. You should get some of those upper body massages! Just make sure he keeps things above the belt!

9/13/2006 12:19 AM  

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