pRETTY IN PINK
It takes a lot to lift your eyes from the dirty brown and grey tunnel that is
Commissioner Street in Johannesburg. A more dreary, colourless street, or city for
that matter, is hard to find. By Michael Taylor
B
ut it is not the colour of this city
that gets your heart racing, it is the
traffic. Buses smash their way around
as nimble as fairies, taxies deft as
wrecking balls sprint the racing
lines and the pedestrians intent
on throwing themselves in front of
your car make sure that your daily
commute is a white knuckle ride.
Every person with an ounce of sanity
is a quivering wreck driving with their chins over the
steering wheel, eyes firmly on the road. One glance
Photo: Mpho Mokgadi
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anywhere else and you can almost guarantee that your
next meeting will not be in the boardroom, but on the
lap of a taxi driver.
With all this chaos around you, you do not get the
feeling that you are missing much anyway. The dreary
grey and brown buildings barely register; they stand
forlorn and forgotten. I have been driving the same
route daily for eight months now and I cannot single
out one building worthy of mention if I try. It would
take a lot for me to look anywhere but the road – yet an
attack of pink did the trick.
Photo: http://instagram.com/tominjoburg
africandesignmagazine.com