Ponte City, Johannesburg

Ponte City, Johannesburg

Located in the northern suburb of Hillbrow, the Ponte City apartment building is a symbol of both the city’s ambition and the urban decay of the 1980s and 1990s. A futuristic, cylindrical building, Ponte City is the tallest residential building in Africa. Standing 54 stories and 172 meters tall, it is topped by the largest billboard in the southern hemisphere. Costing $2.5 million dollars, the apartment block was completed in 1975. In order to allow light to reach all areas of the apartments, the tower was designed with a hollow core and an outdoor rock garden at the ground level.

A floor filled with shops on the 8th floor, plus a raised walkway to the nearby university campus, demonstrate that Ponte City was designed as a gleaming living city. By the late 80s, gangs had begun to populate the building, taking over empty apartments. The block became extremely unsafe, and there were even controversial plans to convert it into a city centre, high rise prison. There are currently ongoing regeneration plans, under the working title of ‘New Ponte’. A famous Johannesburg landmark, Ponte City is widely seen in District 9, a hugely successful home-grown science fiction film set in the city.

Want to visit this sight? Check out these Self-Guided Walking Tours in Johannesburg. Alternatively, you can download the mobile app "GPSmyCity: Walks in 1K+ Cities" from Apple App Store or Google Play Store. The app turns your mobile device to a personal tour guide and it works offline, so no data plan is needed when traveling abroad.

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Ponte City on Map

Sight Name: Ponte City
Sight Location: Johannesburg, South Africa (See walking tours in Johannesburg)
Sight Type: Attraction/Landmark

Walking Tours in Johannesburg, South Africa

Create Your Own Walk in Johannesburg

Create Your Own Walk in Johannesburg

Creating your own self-guided walk in Johannesburg is easy and fun. Choose the city attractions that you want to see and a walk route map will be created just for you. You can even set your hotel as the start point of the walk.
Johannesburg Introduction Walking Tour

Johannesburg Introduction Walking Tour

Johannesburg, or Joburg, or "City of Gold", as it is often informally called, is South Africa's largest city. The area's original inhabitants included hunter-gatherers from the San tribes and the Ndebele, a tribe associated with the Zulu. A gold rush in 1884 lead to Johannesburg's founding in 1886. Within a decade, the population had grown to 100,000 inhabitants.

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Tour Duration: 1 Hour(s)
Travel Distance: 2.9 Km or 1.8 Miles
Historical Buildings Walking Tour

Historical Buildings Walking Tour

Since founded in 1886, following the discovery of gold on what used to be farmland, Johannesburg has evolved into an economic powerhouse of Africa. While most of the city's early buildings adopted architectural styles from its colonial parent, the British Empire, some of them also emulated the prowess of New York City. Let's take a closer look at some of these construction marvels.

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Tour Duration: 1 Hour(s)
Travel Distance: 0.7 Km or 0.4 Miles

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