The scale of the Carlton Centre is difficult to grasp from the street level. It is a massive “superblock” that covers an entire city block, and surprisingly, nearly half of its total floor area is underground. Beneath the street lies a sprawling three-level subterranean shopping mall that once housed over 180 shops and an ice-skating rink (the “Sky Rink”) on the 20th floor that was a legendary social hub for generations of Joburgers. The building’s foundations are equally gargantuan, with concrete piles extending 30 meters down to the bedrock to support the millions of tons of steel and glass above.
