Sandton City

Sandton City

Sandton City's logo as of 2011
Location	Sandton, Gauteng, South Africa
Opening date	September 12, 1973
Developer	Rapp and Maister
Management	Liberty Properties
Owner	Liberty Group Limited Pareto Ltd
No. of stores and services	close to 300
No. of floors	2
Website	www.sandtoncity.com

Sandton City is a shopping center in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa. It was founded and owned by the property development company Rapp and Maister. The center opened its doors to the public on September 12, 1973. The center has a gross leasable area of 128,000 m² (1,380,000 sq ft) of retail space. The office space combined with the Sandton Sun Hotel increase the total area to 215,000 m² (2,310,000 sq ft). Together, Sandton City and the adjacent Nelson Mandela Square form the second largest retail complex in Africa. A pyramid-shaped roof was added in the 1990s and provides the distinguishing architectural feature of Sandton City. It is known for being the Rodeo drive of Africa.

Sandton City was built as a twenty-one storey, concrete block shopping center that opened in late 1973. It is an example of the Brutalist architecture that was common in South Africa in the early 1970s, which is often referred to as "Apartheid Architecture" because of its austerity and scale, and because the Apartheid government used this style in most administrative and state buildings at that time. The architecture is also seen in the Golden Acre (Goue Akker), a similar shopping center built in Cape Town before the construction of Sandton City, the International Terminal at the airport in Johannesburg, the Carlton Center, the new Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg, and the JG Strijdom (since renamed the Hillbrow Tower) in Hillbrow, Central Johannesburg. Most of these buildings were conceived in the late 1960s, soon after Justice Minister BJ Vorster became Prime Minister in 1966 and following the assassination of Hendrik Verwoerd.

Sandton City opened in 1973 with 120 stores on two levels, and added two additional levels of parking for 2,500 cars and outside parking. It was also the first of its kind in Johannesburg. Upon opening, the scale and depth of the center revolutionized South African and Johannesburg retailing. However, many people criticized the center's lack of external lighting and a loss of functionality from Hyde Park Corner, a much smaller shopping center nearby Sandton City. The outer plaza to the east housed offices, branches of Nedbank and Barclays (later to become First National Bank), medical suites, and a steak house. A bridge connected the outer plaza to what was then Sandton Library, a medical clinic, and the Sandton Council building. In its early stages in the 1970s, the small lower floor housed a post office, which was divided into sections for black and white customers, and a Ster-Kinekor cinema complex that is still there today. The racial segregation of the Sandton City Post Office was removed around 1977.