Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse: Ponte City Revisited

Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse worked at Ponte City, the iconic Johannesburg apartment building and AfricaÆs tallest residential skyscraper, for more than six years. There they photographed its residents and exhaustively documented the buildingùevery door, the view from every window, the image on every television screen. This remarkable body of photographs appears here in counterpoint to an extensive archive of found material and historical documents, a sustained sequence of essays and documentary texts is also integrated into the visual story. In the essays, some of South AfricaÆs leading scholars and writers explore Ponte CityÆs unique place in Johannesburg and in the imagination of its citizens. What emerges is a complex portrait of a place shaped by contending projections, a single, unavoidable building seen as refuge and monstrosity, dreamland and dystopia, a lightning rod for a societyÆs hopes and fears, and always a beacon to navigate by. This long-term project received the Discovery Award at