Ponte City: Response -

Ponte City is a project by Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse  that sets out to show the real condition of Ponte City, to show how it is to how people perceive it to be. The article starts out by stating how everybody sees buildings everyday without actually seeing them. The assumption of what it is to the actual fact. To think of the building without taking into consideration of the people inside. The beginning line of the text says "One feature of urban modernity has been that frequently we live our lives in surroundings that defy the human sense of scale." This quote is essentially saying that the view of the outside from the human eye creates connotations that the viewer forms. "We build as if we're gods and then view the results like infants." 

Ponte City, Johannesburg, could be described as a myth in the sense that there are multiple different ways that it is perceived. "It seems beyond biblical in dimension." The building that was built with the intenson of inviting the high-end, rich people to a place to live became a building in which appears dystopian and even apocalyptic. 

Subotzky's photos appear to create a stunning look at a place that the out-looker's perception is a vast difference to the inside. '-a sarcophagus enclosing or, given the wreckage in the manner of Chernobyl." This is a fitting metaphor as behind the walls has more of a feeling of the state of Chernobyl than would have been expected. Similar to the expectation of what people think of Chernobyl before actually seeing documentation of the location. The perception of what people have to the interpretation of Subotzky's work to the events that took place within. 

The building has aspects of science fiction from the architectural shape to the relating floors and windows that extends the light into a sense of impossibility and unsettling feeling that it generates. The building is just a barrier to the poignant and profound aspect; the people within, the people whose lives create a whole new interpretation of the project. 

References: 

“Ponte City • Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse • Magnum Photos.” Magnum Photos, 13 June 2018, http://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-culture/mikhael-subotzky-ponte-city/.