Inside the hollow: Our visit to Ponte Tower

Anyone familiar with Johannesburg's skyline will recognise Ponte Tower as one its most iconic landmarks. It's situated in Hillbrow, which was once one of Johannesburg’s most desirable, cosmopolitan neighbourhoods in the mid-20th century, but it fell into decline in the 1980s and 90s amid urban flight, then overcrowding, and rising crime. I've been curious about visiting this area since we moved to Joburg but have been regularly deterred from the idea by most locals who warn that I might get snatched.

However, this particular tour came recommended by a friend (thank you, Kev). It's run by Dlala Nje - a social enterprise that operates in and around Ponte and focuses on inner-city regeneration, running youth programmes and other community initiatives in Hillbrow, while also using guided tours such as this one to help change the perception of the area. So when Liz came to visit, I suggested we go - framing it, perhaps a little optimistically, as a kind of “tourist activity.”

Ponte Tower from the ground

Ponte Tower was completed in 1975, designed by architect Manfred Hermer. At the time, it was the height of aspirational city living. Rising 54 storeys above the city, its cylindrical shape with a famous hollow core, was built around an immovable rock (see below) and it was designed to flood every flat with light. At its peak, it housed Johannesburg’s white elite: wealthy professionals, young urbanites, people drawn to the idea that you could live entirely within the building. There were shops, a hair salon, even plans for leisure spaces, everything you needed without ever stepping outside.

But like much of Johannesburg, its design was shaped by apartheid. Black residents were only permitted to live there as domestic workers, housed separately on floors 53 and 54. As we went up, the lift stopped at floor 52 and so did not service the uppermost floors. Servants were not permitted to use the lifts at all and so had to climb the entire tower daily on foot, a deliberate way of controlling and monitoring their movement.

Liz standing at the centre of Ponte - built around a rock, forming its hollow cylinder.

But Ponte’s "heyday" didn’t last long. By the 1980s, the apartheid regime was beginning to crumble, and with it, the fabric of neighbourhoods like Hillbrow, which became one of the first so-called “grey areas”. These were places where racial boundaries began to blur, and more black residents began moving into spaces previously reserved for whites.  That shift, combined with growing political unrest and economic uncertainty, triggered a steady exodus of white residents and investment from the inner city.  As wealth and infrastructure moved outwards to the northern suburbs, and as the inner city absorbed new waves of people seeking opportunity, Hillbrow became increasingly overcrowded and under-resourced. By the 1990s, crime had risen sharply, buildings were neglected, and Ponte itself became infamous.

Ponte’s decline was swift and dramatic. What had once been an emblem of modernist ambition gradually became infamous as a “vertical slum”. One of the most enduring images from that period is of the hollow core itself, which became a dumping ground for waste. Over time, rubbish is said to have piled up inside the centre of the tower and eventually reaching as high as the 14th floor.

As formal management broke down, informal control took over. Different floors were reportedly run by gangs, and access to the building became fragmented and unsafe, with the building effectively operating beyond the reach of the city. During this period, Ponte also acquired one of its darkest nicknames: “Suicide Tower,” a reference to the number of deaths associated with the building at the time, as well as its reputation for despair and instability.

Inside the hollow

By the mid-2000s, Ponte’s story could easily have ended there. But instead, something hopeful began to happen inside the building that had come to symbolise collapse. In 2007, a group of local activists and residents founded Dlala Nje, initially as a youth-focused initiative working with children in Hillbrow and Berea. What started as small community programmes gradually evolved into something more ambitious: a way of reintroducing people to a part of the city they had been taught to avoid.

The turnaround of Ponte didn’t happen in isolation. In the lead-up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup hosted by South Africa, there was a broader push to clean up parts of Johannesburg’s inner city in preparation for international visitors. Ponte, because of its scale and visibility, became an obvious focus. Advertising agreements became a key aspect of funding the wider restoration and upkeep of the tower, which lead to one of Ponte's most recognisable features - a red Coca-Cola advertising strip at the top of the tower (which is now advertising space for Vodacom). During the restoration process, the entire space was cleared and the building was gradually brought back under formal management. Our guide spoke, too, about the darker rumours that circulated from that period of countless bodies being discovered amongst the waste in the tower's hollow core.

The transformation of Ponte is widely regarded as a rare success story: a building that moved from abandonment back into use, and is once again considered a safe place to live. But the surrounding area tells a more complicated story. From the upper floors, our guide pointed out nearby buildings that remain “hijacked”, taken over informally and often falling outside of official control. Even inside Ponte itself, the past hasn’t been entirely erased. Some of the original architectural features have been modified over time, including windows into the central atrium that have been sealed or reinforced to prevent damage to the interior space. And despite the building’s renewed status, the guide was candid about the fact that not all residents are respectful of their iconic home. At one point, as we were leaving, we even saw a bag of rubbish thrown from one of the upper levels to the ground outside. A small, jarring reminder that old habits die hard.

Liz enjoying the view from the top

If there’s one thing I’d genuinely recommend doing in Johannesburg, it’s this tour. Not just for Ponte itself, but for the way it opens up the history of the building and the surrounding Hillbrow area. It’s a reminder that South Africa’s history is complex and uncomfortable, and that its scars are still visible across the country today.

Notes from 26° South.