Carlton Centre

The Carlton Centre is a 50-storey skyscraper and shopping centre on Commissioner Street in central Johannesburg, South Africa. It is 223 metres tall, and from its completion in 1973 until 2019 it was the tallest building in Africa, for 46 years.

Until 1977 it was also the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. Today it is the fifth tallest in Africa, after The Leonardo in Johannesburg and towers in Morocco, Algeria and Egypt. The tower is a square shaft with notched corners and dark vertical strips of windows, standing on a shopping-centre podium. It holds both offices and shops, and more than 46 per cent of its floor area lies below ground level.

What is beneath the tower?

The foundations of the two buildings in the complex are 5 metres wide and go 15 metres down to bedrock, which lies 35 metres below street level. Underground, a shopping centre with more than 180 shops links the tower to the Carlton Hotel. The two towers stand on very deep bases that keep the tall building steady in the ground.

How did it begin?

The site was made of two city blocks. On the southern blocks the old Castle Lager brewery once stood, and after a new brewery was built in the suburbs this site was demolished and sold to the Schlesinger family, who turned the blocks into car parks. The original Carlton Hotel was torn down in 1963 to make way for the new complex.

On the globe

The model shows a square shaft with notched corners and dark vertical window strips on a shopping-centre podium. Look at the base under the tower.