The Lakehouse

“The mere habit of learning to love is the thing.”
-Jane Austen, 1775-1817

For Hyababy
(this piece is dedicated to Hya Bibit for whom I would want a man who would love her beyond time and space)

No, this isn’t about a glass house with a magnificent view of the lake in North Shore. I just got home from the Keanu Reeves-Sandra Bullock movie called “Lakehouse” which my friend Hya Bibit of GMA Post had raved about since it opened last Wednesday. With the way she was talking about it and about Keanu, I really had to make time for it over the weekend.

I watched the movie in PowerPlant and minutes later, I found myself scouring Fully-Booked for a copy of Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” in the Classics Section of the bookstore. Unfortunately, not a copy was in sight. I merely wanted to find out for myself how a depressing theme could be beautiful to someone. Perhaps, I could relate to Kate (Sandra’s character in the movie) in the sense that she was convincing herself to find fulfillment in helping others (as advised by her dad who told her to be a doctor) to be able to make herself count amidst the stream of humanity while seemingly detached and distant from everyone else. If that doesn’t make sense to you, go out and get yourself a ticket to the movie. The P160 plus popcorn money that you shell out are well worth it.



Anyway, Lakehouse is set in Chicago and Keanu’s character as an architect son of a supposedly well-respected architect in Chicago inspired me to dig up my photos taken in the windy city last October. I was lucky enough to take an architectural tour of Chicago aboard a ferry.



The tour gives insights into the why this building is here and what it stands for – from the massive Wrigley Building to the Chrysler Building, to where the Chicago Tribune goes to press and where the Trump Tower once was and the future site being constructed, right to the condo where Oprah now lives, the tour is a compact architectural cum historical lecture in one. It’s really where the old meets the new, the traditional melts in with the modern, and where the past blends in with the present and the future.



Of course, you can’t miss the Millennium Dome, a chrome structure that sits right on Millennium Park and from where the reflection of Chicago’s magnificent cityscape bounces off.

Just walking through the streets of the city gives one a feeling of being in a place that gave a high premium on the art of architecture – and of allowing “the light….the light….” to come majestically (yet functionally) into the building as Christopher Plummer’s character (Sam Wyler) had said in the film.

Chicago is truly a mecca of sorts not only because all the edifices that stand in the city are a must-see for architects or anyone just wanting to bask in the glory and drama of great, tall buildings with stories to tell. And for everybody just wanting to take in the feel of a big city.

And did I mention that if not because my parents discouraged me from taking a 5-yr college course, I would have become a full-fledged architect by now? Just maybe, I still can fulfill that dream – if only it be a house by the lake, or maybe I could build one even just by the river of Pasig. :-)