[3] Sandton City was built as a twenty-one storey, concrete block shopping centre that opened in late 1973.

The architecture is also seen in the Golden Acre (Goue Akker), a similar shopping centre built in Cape Town before the construction of Sandton City, the International Terminal at OR Tambo International Airport, the Carlton Centre, new Rand Afrikaans University (now University of Johannesburg), and the JG Strijdom (since renamed the Hillbrow Tower) in Hillbrow, Central Johannesburg.

In 1968, Rapp and Maister property developers purchased land consisting of 4 hectares opposite the future Sandton municipal site on the corner of 5th Street and Rivonia Road.

[5] Rapp and Maister proposed to build a large shopping mall with an office tower on their site on this highpoint in Sandton.

In its early stages in the 1970s, the small lower floor housed a post office and a Ster-Kinekor cinema complex that is still there today.

In 2013, the Twin Towers office section of Sandton City was completely re-clad with a contemporary glass shell (these are now called Atrium on 5th).

On 26 March 2020, the worldwide pandemic, COVID-19, forced Sandton City among other malls across Johannesburg, to shut the majority of its stores down during South Africa's lockdown.