Ponte City Apartments
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| Ponte City Apartments | |
|---|---|
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| Information | |
| Location | Hillbrow neighbourhood of Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Coordinates | 26°11′26″S 28°3′25.5″E / 26.19056°S 28.057083°E |
| Status | Complete |
| Constructed | |
| Use | Residential |
| Height | |
| Roof | 173 m (567.6 ft) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 54-story |
| Companies | |
| Architect | Designed by Manfred Hermer |
Ponte City is a skyscraper in the Hillbrow neighbourhood of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was built in 1975 to a height of 173 m (567.6 ft), making it the tallest residential skyscraper in Africa. The 54-story building is cylindrical, with an open center allowing additional light into the apartments. The center space is known as "the core" and rises above an uneven rock floor. Ponte City was an extremely desirable address for its views over all of Johannesburg and its surroundings. The sign on top of the building is the highest and largest sign in the southern hemisphere.[1] It currently advertises the South African mobile phone company Vodacom.[2]
Contents |
[edit] History
The building was designed by Manfred Hermer, the same architect responsible for the Johannesburg Civic Theatre and the Alexander Theatre.[3] The Ponte building team included architect Rodney Grosskopff who recalled the decision to make the building circular, the first cylindrical skyscraper in Africa.[4] 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.[4] At the bottom of the immense building were retail stores and initial plans were to include an indoor ski slope on the 32,000 square foot inner core floor.[4] The building was so tall because developers wanted a large number of units but only had limited land to build on.[4] The building was located 15 minutes from the OR Tambo International Airport and almost within walking distance of the innercity with theatres like the Market and the Civic within 5 km (3.1 mi).[2]
[edit] Decay
During the late 80s gang activity had caused the crime rate to soar at the tower and the surrounding neighbourhood.[2] By the 1990s, after the end of apartheid, 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 Hillbrow neighborhood. The core filled with debris five stories high as the owners left the building to decay.[4] There were even proposals in the mid-1990s to turn the building into a highrise prison.[2] In 2001 Trafalgar Properties took over management of the building and began making some much needed changes to the building.[3]
[edit] Investagain scandal
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 totally revitalize the building.[5] 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.
However it was later revealed that Ayyoub's company, Investagain, had never purchased the building and that according to them funding that the company was counting on fell through. By December of 2008 they had stopped returning phone calls and suppliers and investors were complaining that attempts to get their money back had failed.[5] The building is currently owned and operated by the Kempston group.
[edit] In popular culture
- Movies
- In February 2007 director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, and Slumdog Millionaire) announced his intention to film a thriller set in the tower.[6]
- One of the final shots of the 2009 film District 9 is of the tower.[7]
- Books
- German writer Norman Ohler used the Ponte as the setting for his book Stadt des Goldes, "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".[8]
[edit] References
- ^ "Ponte City Apartments". Emporis. 2009. http://www.emporis.com/application/?nav=building&lng=3&id=103534. Retrieved November 21, 2009.
- ^ a b c d Davie, (November 9, 2007). "Ponte: revival of a Joburg icon". pub. http://www.southafrica.info/business/economy/development/ponte-081107.htm. Retrieved November 21, 2009.
- ^ a b Redmond, Gillian (January 10, 2003). "Johannesburg Landmarks". Randburg Sun. Amethyst.co.za. http://www.amethyst.co.za/JhbLandmarks/. Retrieved November 21, 2009.
- ^ a b c d e Hanes, Stephanie (February 12, 2008). "Ponte City – a South African landmark – rises again". The Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0212/p20s01-woaf.htm?print=true. Retrieved November 21, 2009.
- ^ a b Pampalone, Tania (December 16, 2008). "Ponte project crashes". Mail & Guardian Online. http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-12-16-ponte-project-crashes. Retrieved November 21, 2009.
- ^ Danny Boyle interview. BBC - Film Network.
- ^ Sailer, Steve (2009-08-21). "Neill Blomkamp's Giant Apartheid Metaphor". iSteve.com. http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/08/neill-blomkamps-giant-apartheid.html. Retrieved 2009-08-23.
- ^ Ohler, Norman (in German). Stadt des Goldes (April 1, 2002 ed.). Rowohlt Tb. ISBN 3499227274.- Total pages: 253
[edit] External links
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