Some people associate the number 13 with bad luck and so to stave off evil and placate superstitious clients, building owners tactfully skip 13th floor and even room 13 in hotels, writes HAROLD AYODO

The beauty and architectural ingenuity of many skyscrapers scuplting the skylines of big cities belies nothing of the mystery behind some of them.

You probably have often gone up and down some of them and never realised the mysterious absence of the 13th floor.

In case you think this is farfetched and is not in Kenya, try visiting Lonrho House along Standard Street in the Central Business District of Nairobi.

Our curiosity took us to this dark blue skyscraper that houses commercial offices and to our amazement, the lift button panel skipped number 13, as the floor is non-existent.

For confirmation, we alighted on the 12th floor, occupied by Humphrey and Company Advocates, and took the steps up to the next floor.

Superstitious beliefs

Surprisingly, it was the 14th floor occupied by KPMG – a global network of professional firms providing audit, advisory and tax services. The building has 22 floors above the ground with a height of 79.86 metres.

The exclusion of number 13 can also be seen in hotel floors and room numbering. The Nairobi Safari Club along University Way is an example. It has 16 floors, but skips the13th.

We visited other luxurious hotels that go past the 13th floor and some like The Hilton had both floor 13 and room 13.

Some buildings exclude not only room number 13, but also any number that ends with 13.

Dominion Hotels Consultants’ director of sales Francis Mwariga says The Nairobi Safari Club, for example, does not have room numbers that end with 13 like 513 and 613.

"There are several other lodges and tented camps across the country that avoid the number 13," Mwariga says.

Top-secret documents

Globally, in some five star hotels like Radisson Hotel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; the 13th floor is called the pool floor while the Sheraton in Niagara has a restaurant on its 13th floor.

Some conspiracy theorists suggest that the 13th floor in government buildings is not really missing, but contains top-secret documents.

According to Mwariga, many superstitious people refuse to sleep in room 13 or on the 13th floor of a hotel. To avoid this, hotel buildings name 13th floor the lounge or terrace but most skip it altogether. The rooms are labelled 12A and 12B,

If the 13th floor is omitted, it means a building with 20 actual floors will seem to have 21 because the lift panel will be numbered to 21.

According to the Architectural Association of Kenya chairman Steven Oundo, the 13th floor and room 13 are mainly avoided because of superstition.

"Number 13 has for a long time been associated with bad luck…That is why many investors in real estate have reservations," Oundo says.

Architecturally and structurally, he says there is no cause to worry or to be alarmed about 13.

"There are buildings which end on the 13th floor within the CBD, but the owners say there are 14 floors to avoid the ominous number 13," Oundo says.

The origin of skipping the 13th floor when installing lifts is not known, but, according to Internet sources, during the advent of early skyscrapers, New York architectural critics warned developers not to exceed the 13th floor.

According to the critics, buildings that rose above the 13th floor would lead to street congestion, ominous shadows and low property value.

In Kenya, a section of prospective investors in real estate request architects to ‘skip’ the superstitious floor when designing their buildings.
"As an architect, I have encountered clients of extreme opinions when it comes to the 13th floor," Oundo says.

He says there are also apartment blocks in the high-end areas like Kilimani, Riverside Drive, Lavington and Westlands that omit the ominous number.

According to Oundo, a client recently insisted his 15-storey building should exclude the 13th floor.

"There is also a renowned hotel with 29 rooms where a client refused to stay in room 13. Paradoxically, the proprietor of the premise speaks of his 30-suite hotel and budgets for the same, forgetting he does not have room 13," Oundo says.
In another scenario, a superstitious client, who wanted a 14-storey building skilfully, excluded the 13th.

Cultural myths

"He opted that we design two blocks of seven storeys each as opposed to one 14-storey block, automatically excluding the dreaded 13th floor," Oundo says.

Architects in the West say they are not to blame for buildings that display the 13th floor as 14, 12B or M (mechanical or mezzanine) on lift button panels.

According to the professionals, re-labelling the 13th floor is usually the result of building owners or developers being either superstitious or jittery that potential tenants might refuse to occupy the floor.

Take the case of The Reliance Building (now the Hotel Burnham) in the US that opened at 32 North State Street in 1895 with a designated 13th floor.

Later, its new owner had the floor eliminated and further took time and expense to change all the room numbers above the 12th floor.

The superstitions do not only surround number 13. Filipinos, for example, avoid homes whose staircase leads out of the front door or those whose back door can be seen from the front door. They also avoid houses whose sellers have divorced because they believe it will endanger their own marriages.

Mwariga says most hotels in countries like China omit the fourth, 14th and 24th floors, as the word ‘four’ sounds like "death" in Mandarin — a Chinese language.

Other properties the Filipinos would never invest in are those located on T-junctions and those that do not face east.