Construction began in the late 1960's with the demolition of the old Carlton Hotel and the closure of roads to form a city superblock. Massive excavation works saw a crater formed, where pilings were driven into the ground to support the new structure. The building was officially opened in 1973, around the same time as the Sears Tower and some two years after the opening of the World Trade Center. Its construction gave further impetus to the nickname that was given to Johannesburg: "the New York of Africa."
The Carlton Centre was designed by high_profile US architectural firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. It has 50 storeys, including a viewing deck on the 50th floor, which affords views of the whole city and Pretoria. The building is the head office of transport parastatal Transnet.
The idea for the CarltonCentre, comprising the 50-storey office tower with its subterranean retailing and parking areas, and 32-storey hotel, was presented by Hoffe and Ted Sceales, then managing director of South African Breweries, to Anglo American Chairman Harry Oppenheimer, in 1962.
Today the CarltonCentre is such a familiar part of Johannesburg's skyline that many forget, or have never realised, just how extraordinary its construction is. Its design technology stands among the best ever built even by today's standards and it still makes the top 10 of the world's highest reinforced-concrete structures.
'The CarltonCentre is an extraordinary legacy for South Africa, and was built to be precisely that.
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