What is the history behind the Burj Khalifa in Dubai?

The Burj Khalifa is a skyscraper located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It was designed by the Chicago-based architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with Adrian Smith as the lead architect, and was completed in 2010.

The tower is named after Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the President of the United Arab Emirates and the Emir of Abu Dhabi, who provided a large portion of the financing for the project. The Burj Khalifa was built to be the centerpiece of a new development called Downtown Dubai, which includes residential, commercial, and hotel properties.

Construction of the Burj Khalifa began in 2004, and it officially opened on January 4, 2010. At the time of its completion, it was the tallest building in the world, surpassing the previous record-holder, the Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan, by more than 300 meters (984 feet). The Burj Khalifa held this title until the completion of the Shanghai Tower in China in 2015.

The design of the Burj Khalifa was inspired by Islamic architecture, specifically the geometries of the desert flower and the minaret. The tower features a Y-shaped plan that provides maximum views of the surrounding area, and is clad in reflective glass, which reduces the amount of heat absorbed by the building.