1. Dubai govenment wanted to increase the number of tourists visiting the city centre;

2. Building a tower of that size could improve the identity of the city and its reputation in the whole world;

3. Burj Khalifa was built in order to win the record of the highest tower in the entire world; the ruler of Dubai said that the idea to build that building was inspired by a visit to the Empire State Building in New York. After that visit the king decided he wanted to build the highest tower of the world in his own city.

Burj Khalifa is the result of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Āl Maktūm’s ambitions.: he was the first person who decided to invest his money in new projects to improve the economy in Dubai.

The project was signed in 2002 by the famous architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. The high of the structure was originally assumed to be 818 metres, but then they changed their mind, and the final decision was hidden because of reasons of competition.

The works began before finishing the project of Burj Khalifa, and the yard was opened on 21 September 2004.

In 2007 Burj Khalifa was still under construction, but, anyway, it won its first record overcoming the high of the Willis Tower , , becoming the building with the greatest number of floors. On 5 February 2008 it reached the high of 508 metres, overcoming the Taipei 101 that was the highest skyscraper in the world until that year.

Unfortunatelly, in 2008 Dubai suffered from financial problems as a result of the fact that too much money was spent to build Burj Khalifa, but thanks to the economic aid of the Emeer of Abu Dhabi, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan, problems were solved: the only condition was that the tower had to change its name, it had to have the Emeer’s name: Khalifa. That’s why, nowadays, it is called Burj Khalifa, instead of Burj Dubai, the name which was originally chosen.

In addition, Emaar Properties declared that in 2008 the construction of the Burj Khalifa was slowed by some problems due to some changes that had to be made to improve the structure of the building.

Another negative aspect the construction of the building included was the fact that workers were obliged to live in very bad conditions, and sometimes they weren’t paid, as said by a BBC investigation.

Burj Khalifa was definitely finished on 1 October 2009, but tourists were allowed to visit it only starting from 4 January 2010.

After the building was finished, it was 830 metres high, and it became the highest skyscraper in the whole world.