Ponte City

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Ponte City
Ponte City
Basic data
Place: Johannesburg , South Africa
Status : built (1975)
Architect : Manfred Hermer, Rod Grosskopff and Lombart
Technical specifications
Height : 172.8 m
Height to the roof: 172.8 m
Rank (height) : 4th place (Africa)
3rd place (South Africa)
as of 2017
Floors : 54
Elevators : 8th

Ponte City (also Ponte Tower ) is a high-rise residential building in the Hillbrow district of Johannesburg in South Africa .

history

The 173 meter high building was erected in 1975 and is the tallest apartment building in Africa. The 54-storey building has a circular floor plan with an open interior area that extends over all floors, allowing additional daylight into the apartments. The interior is called the core and rises above an uneven rock floor. After its completion, Ponte City was considered an extremely noble address, as the tower offers a magnificent view of the surrounding Hillbrow residential area and the entire city of Johannesburg and its surroundings.

After the end of apartheid , during the 1990s, more and more gangs moved into the building, which over time made it an extremely unsafe and littered place to live. Ponte City became a symbol of violence and urban decay, which particularly affected the once cosmopolitan Hillbrow district.

In preparation for the 2010 soccer World Cup , the city administration succeeded in significantly improving the image of the landmark, which is visible from afar. The heaps of rubbish in the core were removed and the 500 apartments completely renovated. Comprehensive security measures have been implemented, such as admission control by scanning fingerprints and the installation of security gates .

The surrounding area is still unsafe, resulting in low rents that are particularly attractive to students.

In 2018, the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited the Ponte City as part of his state visit to South Africa.

description

The residential tower is a building which, in addition to the spacious apartments, was / is equipped with swimming pools, restaurants and boutiques. Originally, it was designed by the architects for around 3,500 residents, but at the end of apartheid it lived a maximum of 10,000 people.

There is a viewing terrace on the 52nd floor.

There is now a small supermarket, a bakery and an internet café in the house.

Ponte City in the media and public use

In 2015, the photo book Ponte City by Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse won the Deutsche Börse Photo Prize .

The tower has served as a location for filming several times. This gave rise to the idea of offering high-rise tours that numerous tourists are happy to accept. The aid organization Dlala Nje , founded by the journalist Nickolaus Bauer, which has an office in the house, organizes these tours. An estimated 20,000 interested parties had taken such tours by the end of 2019.

Some rooms are now also rented by party guests.

literature

  • Mikhael Subotzky, Patrick Waterhouse: Ponte City . Steidl, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 3-8693-0750-1 .

Web links

Commons : Ponte City Apartments  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johannes Dieterich: Steinmeier in South Africa: An Unexpected Guest in Hillbrow. fr.de from November 19, 2018, accessed on November 21, 2018
  2. ↑ a b c Ralf E. Krüger: Africa's most dangerous high-rise . In: Berliner Zeitung , 22./23. February 2020, p. B2.
  3. ↑ South Africa's most dangerous residential building changes in FAZ of June 10, 2016, page I3.
  4. ↑ Deutsche Börse Photo Prize 2015: 54 floors of slum. Spiegel Online, accessed June 9, 2015 .

Coordinates: 26 ° 11 ′ 26 ″  S , 28 ° 3 ′ 25.5 ″  E