We really felt we needed some architectural inspiration on the cover of this issue. And we found it. The 86-metre glass-clad office tower in Cape Town’s growing financial and hospitality precinct, dubbed 35 Lower Long and designed by dhk Architects, looks like an icon of a new era. It seems to say that there is something to look forward to. Somehow towers, for all their associations with hubris, still seem to communicate something optimistic.