The Schlesinger Building, also known as Wesbank Centre or Sanlam Centre, is a skyscraper in
Braamfontein
Braamfontein (English: ''blackberry spring'', or more prosaicly ''blackberry springs''; also known as Braam) is a central suburb of Johannesburg, in South Africa, seat of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and some of South Africa's major c ...
,
Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...
, South Africa. It was built in 1965 to a height of . It has 21 floors.
The building is named for John Schlesinger, a Johannesburg businessman who was also one of the first major art collectors in the city.
Doreen E. Greig, who was the first female president-in-chief of the
South African Institute of Architects The South African Institute of Architects (SAIA) is an association of affiliated and regional institutes that promotes excellence of architectural design in South Africa. It replaced the Institute of South African Architects and a number of regional ...
,
described the building in her book as 'an immense building' with a 'sombre and monumental' aspect, which derived from the reflection of grey-green glass
sheathing. Its facade are swollen and its vertical aluminium mullions are balanced by the horizontal glass
spandrels
A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...
, which also less obscure than the
fenestration
Fenestration may refer to:
* Fenestration (architecture), the design, construction, or presence of openings in a building
* Used in relation to fenestra in anatomy, medicine and biology
* Fenestration, holes in the rudder of a ship to reduce the w ...
.
See also
*
List of tallest buildings in Africa
*
List of tallest buildings in South Africa
References
Citations
Books
*
External links
Amethyst: Johannesburg Landmarks Retrieved 11 February 2008.
Buildings and structures completed in 1965
Skyscraper office buildings in Johannesburg
Office buildings completed in 1965
20th-century architecture in South Africa
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