The Ponte City Tower resembles a building from a dystopian future. Built as a giant skyscraper, which previously served as a housing complex, it was the literal personification of the figurative ivory tower; a symbol of progress in Johannesburg’s Hillbrow district. But times have changed.
Nowadays, this area is a world of crime and poverty, and it’s mentioned in headlines that are solely negative. Entire floors are occupied by gangs, which use this building as a base. Although security was stepped up on behalf of the residents, crime and violence are still a tremendous unsolved problem. After all, the number of murdered people in this area even outnumbers that of traffic accident victims!
However, that’s not the only reason why this 173m skyscraper is so unique – its architecture was futuristic and trailblazing at the time of its construction in 1975. The idea of the self-contained cosmos is emphasised by the partio, which is developed by the cylindric building, and daylight streams in to brighten the gloomy atmosphere. Nowadays, because of the dilapidation, the tower has an ominous, but magnetically attractive aura about it. The rent is extremely cheap, and so gangs and students live next to each other in a sphere of criminal doings, prostitution and drug dealing. Education and violence crammed so tightly into one place – let’s see if that will change anything!
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