in The Lake House movie, even the old house is the modern house

This movie was called to our attention by reader Larry. He pointed out that the house featured in this movie, while not meant to be a new house was certainly modern. Not having seen the movie I was quite surprised by the house.

The house is at once old, and thoroughly modern. It appears to be an iron age structure - evoking some of the earliest iron framed structures from the industrial revolution such as the Crystal Palace in London. Yet, for a house it is a glass walled box, with an open floor plan, the perfect Meisian home as glass box - the international style from the late 40s.

Such a house would never had been made in the era it was presuming to be from, so we have to wonder why the film makers would put together such a hybrid structure to be the setting for this story? The fact that the house was old played a part in the narrative of the story. The one character an architect somehow acquired the home, or rented it from an older architect. But any old house would do for that. Why this strange hybrid. The house was meant to be the place of this temporal anomaly whereby the characters communicate across several years. In much the same way the house is an artifact at once in the industrial revolution era, and the idealized international style.

If it was just an old home, it would not have been a significant part of the story. But here the modern home speaks to the concept of the story, even if it is only a ghost of a modern home possessing a structure from an earlier era. Once again popular media leverages the modern home to signify the specialness of a place. They count on us understanding that distinction, as we all seem to do. We all know the modern house is unique, special, desirable. Yet the home building industry continues to ignore it. Isn't it time they woke up?