The Missing Storeys of the ICC

If you were to take the lift at the ICC one day, you would notice that the floor numbering seemingly makes no sense. Looking at the control panel, you would see a whole flurry of missing numbers. While the skyscraper structurally has only 108 floors above ground, officially it goes up to 118. Yet, the peculiarity of this discrepancy does not end there.

To fully understand why these ten floors are missing, one must realize that Hongkongers can be quite superstitious, and numerology plays a major role in daily life. The number “4”, for instance, has a deeply negative connotation because “four” (四; sei) and “death” (死; séi) sound almost identical, save for a slight shift in tone. Consequently, all 12 floors ending in “4” (from 4 to 114) are skipped.

Moreover, in Cantonese, the number “3” (三, sāam) sounds like “life” or “growth” (生, sāang). Therefore, “3” is generally considered lucky—except when combined with certain other digits. At the ICC, several floors ending in “3” (23, 33, 43, 53, 63, 73, 83, and 93) are omitted, though floors 3, 103, and 113 are kept. Additionally, “13” is bypassed due to Western superstition.

On top of this, a few random numbers (5, 6, 7, 26, 28, 29, and 105) are skipped for undisclosed reasons, bringing the total to 28 omitted floor numbers.

However, some gaps were filled with lettered designations. These include 13 mechanical levels (marked with an M), four refuge floors (R1–R4), and the Upper Ground (UG) level.

All in all, doing the maths, the ICC ends up with ten more official floors than it has physical storeys.