Ponte City is a
skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...
in the
Berea suburb of
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
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
, just next to
Hillbrow
Hillbrow () is an inner city residential neighbourhood of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is known for its high levels of population density, unemployment, poverty, prostitution and crime.
In the 1970s it was an Apartheid-design ...
. It was built in 1975 to a height of , making it the tallest residential skyscraper in Africa. The 55-storey building is cylindrical, with an open centre allowing additional light into the apartments. The centre space is known as "the core" and rises above an uneven rock floor. When built, Ponte City was seen as an extremely desirable address due to its views over all of Johannesburg and its surroundings. The neon sign on top of the building is the largest sign in the southern hemisphere and, prior to 2000, advertised for
The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation founded in 1892, best known as the producer of Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Company also manufactures, sells, and markets other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, ...
.
It currently advertises the South African mobile phone company
Vodacom
Vodacom Group Limited is a South-Western African mobile communications company, providing voice, messaging, data and converged services to over 55 million customers. From its roots in South Africa, Vodacom has grown its operations to include n ...
.
History
The principal designer of Ponte was Mannie Feldman, working in a team together with Manfred Hermer and Rodney Grosskopff. Grosskopff recalled the decision to make the building circular, the first cylindrical skyscraper in Africa.
At the time, Johannesburg bylaws required kitchens and bathrooms to have a window, so Grosskopff designed the building with a hollow interior, allowing light to enter the apartments from both sides.
At the bottom of the immense building were retail stores and initial plans were to include an indoor ski slope on the inner core floor.
The building is located 35 minutes from the
OR Tambo International Airport
O. R. Tambo International Airport is an international airport situated in Kempton Park, Gauteng, Kempton Park, Gauteng, South Africa. It serves as the primary airport for domestic and international travel to/from South Africa and since 2020, ...
and almost within walking distance of the inner city with theatres like the Market and the Civic within .
Decay
During the late 1980s,
gang
A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectivel ...
activity had caused the crime rate to soar at the tower and the surrounding neighbourhood.
By the 1990s, many gangs moved into the building and it became extremely unsafe. Ponte City became symbolic of the crime and urban decay gripping the once cosmopolitan Berea area. The core filled with debris five stories high as the owners left the building to decay.
There were even proposals in the mid-1990s to turn the building into a highrise prison.
In 2001 Trafalgar Properties took over management of the building and began making numerous improvements.
New Ponte
![Hillbrow Tower](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Hillbrow_Tower.jpg)
In May 2007 Ponte changed ownership and a re-development project - "New Ponte" - was put in motion. David Selvan and Nour Addine Ayyoub under Ayyoub's company, Investagain, planned to revitalise the building completely.
The planned development would have contained 467 residential units, retail and leisure-time areas. Over the next few years, the Johannesburg Development Agency planned to invest about
R900 million in the areas around Ponte City such as the
Ellis Park Precinct project as well as an upgrade of Hillbrow and Berea partly in preparation for the
2010 FIFA World Cup
, image = 2010 FIFA World Cup.svg
, size = 200px
, caption = ''Ke Nako. (Tswana and Sotho for "It's time") Celebrate Africa's Humanity'It's time. Celebrate Africa's Humanity'' (English)''Dis tyd. Vier Afrika se mensd ...
.
The
subprime mortgage crisis
The United States subprime mortgage crisis was a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010 that contributed to the Financial crisis of 2007–2008, 2007–2008 global financial crisis. It was triggered by a large decline ...
caused the banks not to provide the funding required to finish the revitalisation. The project was cancelled and ownership was given back to the Kempston Group.
Current status
As of 2017, the building has been totally refurbished, and is now "desirable" and "affordable". The population is reported to be approximately 80% black, and to include immigrants from various countries.
In the arts
Movies
* One of the final shots of the 2009 film ''
District 9
''District 9'' is a 2009 science fiction mockumentary film directed by Neill Blomkamp in his feature film debut, written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, and produced by Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham. It is a co-production of New Zeala ...
'' is of the tower.
* Director
Philip Bloom dedicated a documentary film titled ''Ponte Tower''.
* Ingrid Martens filmed the documentary ''Africa Shafted: Under one Roof'', entirely, over two and a half years, in the Ponte lifts.
* One scene in the 1988 movie ''
Alien from L.A.'' starring
Kathy Ireland
Kathleen Marie Ireland (born March 20, 1963) is an American author, entrepreneur, fashion designer, philanthropist, and former fashion model. Ireland was a supermodel in the 1980s and 1990s, initially known for appearing in 13 consecutive ''Spo ...
was shot in the interior of this location.
* The skyscraper "Peach Trees" featured in the 2012 film ''
Dredd
''Dredd'' is a 2012 science fiction film, science fiction action film directed by Pete Travis and written and produced by Alex Garland. It is based on the ''2000 AD (comics), 2000 AD'' comic strip ''Judge Dredd'' and its eponymous character ...
'' is heavily inspired by Ponte Tower.
* The final scene of the 2014 movie ''
SEAL Team 8: Behind Enemy Lines'' was shot in this location.
* Substantial scenes of the 2015 movie ''
Chappie'' was shot in this location.
* A battle scene was filmed inside the tower for the 2016 movie ''
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter''.
* Many scenes in Love Supreme's music video for the song "Lonely Feelings" were filmed in this location.
* A scene of ''
The Last Days of American Crime
''The Last Days of American Crime'' is a 2020 American action thriller film directed by Olivier Megaton from a screenplay written by Karl Gajdusek, based on Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini's 2009 graphic novel of the same name. It stars Édgar Ra ...
'' of 2020 is filmed in the center of the tower
* The interior of the tower appears in Beyoncé’s ''
Black Is King
''Black Is King'' is a 2020 American musical film and visual album directed, written, and executive produced by American singer Beyoncé. It is a visual companion to the 2019 album '' The Lion King: The Gift'', curated by Beyoncé for ''The Lion ...
''.
Books
*German writer
Norman Ohler
Norman Ohler (born 4 February 1970) is a German ''New York Times'' bestselling author, novelist and screenwriter, best known for his book ''Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany'', which has been published in over 30 languages.
Overview
Ohler was bo ...
used the Ponte as the setting for his book ''Stadt des Goldes'' ("City of Gold"), "Ponte sums up all the hope, all the wrong ideas of modernism, all the decay, all the craziness of the city. It is a symbolic building, a sort of white whale, it is concrete fear, the tower of Babel, and yet it is strangely beautiful".
[- Total pages: 253]
Photography
*South African photographer
Mikhael Subotzky
Mikhael Subotzky (born Cape Town, South Africa, 1981) is a South African artist based in Johannesburg. His installation, film, video and photographic work have been exhibited widely in museums and galleries, and received awards including the KLM ...
and British artist
Patrick Waterhouse won the Discovery award at the
Rencontres d'Arles
The Rencontres d’Arles (formerly called ''Rencontres internationales de la photographie d’Arles'') is an annual summer photography festival founded in 1970 by the Arles photographer Lucien Clergue, the writer Michel Tournier and the historia ...
photography festival in 2011 for their three-year project "Ponte City", photographing the residents, interiors and exteriors of the building, and which produced a series of giant tableaux, made up of hundreds of contact sheets, presented in towering light boxes.
Other
*In 2017, Ponte City Tower was the subject of
an episode of the
Roman Mars
Roman Mars is an American radio producer. He is the host and producer of ''99% Invisible'', a KALW radio show and podcast, and a founder of the podcast collective Radiotopia, which he describes as efforts "to broaden the radio landscape ndmake ...
radio program and podcast ''
99% Invisible
''99% Invisible'' is a radio show and podcast produced and created by Roman Mars that focuses on design. It began as a collaborative project between San Francisco public radio station KALW and the American Institute of Architects in San Francisco ...
''.
*American actor and lyricist
Jeff Blumenkrantz
Jeff Blumenkrantz (born June 3, 1965) is an American actor, composer and lyricist.
Born in Long Branch, New Jersey, Blumenkrantz is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Communication. His stage credits include roles in the Broadway pro ...
wrote a song about the tower for the “Broadway in South Africa” charity concert in 2008.
[Whitby, Suzanne]
"Ponte: Tower of Dreams"
Retrieved on 29 September 2018.
See also
*
Centro Financiero Confinanzas
Centro Financiero Confinanzas (English: Confinanzas Financial Center), also known as Torre de David (the Tower of David), is an unfinished abandoned skyscraper in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. It is the third highest skyscraper in the count ...
*
List of tallest buildings in South Africa
South Africa is the most structurally and economically developed nation on the African continent. As such, its major cities have experienced construction booms that most other cities of similar size in Africa have not. Advanced developmen ...
*
List of tallest buildings in Africa
This article ranks the tallest buildings on the African continent by height. Initially, only a small number of major financial and commercial centers boasted large skylines, such as Cairo, Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi. However, since ...
References
External links
More photos of the Ponte Tower
{{Authority control
Residential buildings completed in 1975
Urban decay in South Africa
Round buildings
1975 establishments in South Africa
Residential skyscrapers in South Africa