The Leonardo

The Leonardo is a 55-floor mixed-use tower at 75 Maude Street in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa. English Wikipedia lists its height as 234 metres. It is the tallest building in South Africa and in sub-Saharan Africa, and it stands about 100 metres from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

It was topped out in April 2019 and was briefly the tallest building in all of Africa, until the minaret tower of the Great Mosque of Algiers (264 metres) took the title later that month. The Leonardo now ranks fourth in Africa. It has 200 apartments and 11 floors of offices, and the whole project cost about R2 billion. Shops fill the street level, and a podium above has a pool and restaurant open to the public.

Africa's tallest, for a while

The design changed a great deal after it was first announced, when it was supposed to be designed by the architecture firm AMA and finished by 2010. Construction really began on 17 November 2015. By April 2018 it was taller than the Sandton City office tower, which is 141 metres high. A year later, it reached the top. Since then, towers in Morocco (250 m) and Egypt (393.8 m) have been finished.

Living at the top

Its three-floor penthouse, about 2,100 square metres, was put up for sale at a reported R180 million. If sold at that price it would be the most expensive sectional title property ever sold in South Africa. The facilities on the podium, such as the swimming pool and restaurant, are open to public use and can be booked through Legacy Hotels and Resorts.

On the globe

The model shows teal-glass boxes stacked with offsets on a bronze podium, with a stepped crown.