Burj Dubai is the ultimate vantage point

After all the hype, we find out what it’s actually like to see the city from the ultimate vantage point

“They could have at least washed the windows!” moaned one journalist stood on the 124th-storey observation deck of the Burj Dubai.

Apparently it can get dusty when you’re half a kilometre in the air. Only very slightly though – and you’d have to be an epic grinch to let this taint your experience of the world’s tallest building,

Ignoring this glass-half-empty simpleton, the rest of us took advantage of today’s press preview to get a sterling view of –and from – the Dhs 5.5 billion ($1.5 billion) superstructure.

Even at 8.30 on a murky Monday morning, floor 124 offers a cornucopia of sights.

The circular gallery offers a 360-degree panoramic view of the city, allowing visitors to take in landmarks such as the Burj Al Arab, Wafi and The World archipelago in under a minute if they so desire.

Tours depart from Dubai Mall at 30-minute intervals. Guests enter a ground floor lobby situated between More Café and a Burj souvenir store (so if you want to buy T-shirts, photo frames or a Dhs299 commemorative crystal bottle of water afterwards, you know where to go).

“Get ready to enter the record books,” pronounces a sign at the entrance. The lobby itself contains a softly-lit replica of the tower, along with “a story in numbers” (12,000 people worked on the Burj at one time or another, and it’s visible from up to 95 kilometres away apparently).

There’s also a quote from His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who visited the Burj yesterday on the fourth anniversary of his Dubai rulership.

“The word impossible is not in the leaders’ dictionaries,” it reads. “No matter how big the challenges, strong faith, determination and resolve will overcome them.”

The tour itself nudges into sci-fi territory at times, especially with the elevators (TV screens and the nightclub-esque décor aside).

The lifts are a speedy proposition indeed – racing up and down the tower at an astonishing 10 metres per second, although you may not even realise you’re moving until your ears begin to pop. Now if only I could get some installed in my Al Barsha tower block…

For those of you wishing to be educated as well as wowed, moving diagrams and interactive displays explain the story of how the Burj was built, before you enter the iconic edifice itself.

Upon reaching the viewing deck, visitors are free to wander around the floor, which comes equipped with high-tech digital telescopes. There is even an outside platform, which was unfortunately shut yesterday for the fireworks display but will be open to the public as of today.

Going back to the view, I found the sheer scale of the Burj forced home by its monstrous shadow – slicing through Dubai and almost touching the coast.

And if you get bored of likening the people below to ants, or the vehicles on Sheikh Zayed Road to Micro Machines, there’s always a gift shop to peruse on the way out.

That said, the sights (and subsequent big-small analogy discussions) will undoubtedly sustain the interest of daydreamers and eagle-eyed sightseers alike.

How do they wash the windows of the Burj Dubai?

In case you were wondering, we discovered how you go about cleaning a building with 1.59 million cubic feet of concrete and 28,601 glass panels.

Window washing and façade maintenance are carried out by 18 permanently installed telescopic units. These manned cradles, installed in garages within the structure, are not visible when in use, and can access the entire façade from the seventh floor to the peak of the building.

Window washing is a vertical operation, and it takes roughly four months to clean the building top to toe.

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