Makati City – the Philippine’s Skyscrapercity

Back when I was in high school, I was a Sim City 4 addict. I used to spend my nights slaving over making the biggest city my measly computer can handle. There was of course the attempt of making a city that had a road layout of Iloilo City, at the time high quality road maps of Iloilo City was not available (Google Earth, I think wasn’t released yet or it didn’t have hi-res images of Iloilo City) so I started to look for road maps of other cities in the Philippines. One google search led to another and I ended up in Skyscrapercity.com. I visited the Philippine sub forum and searched through the threads.

Photo from Wikipedia (I have yet to take a nightshot of Makati)

During those times, my vision of Metro Manila was this bloated dirty metropolis. I was held aback after viewing the “Makati City in Pictures” thread. It was my first time discovering that there’s a city in the Philippines that doesn’t even remotely looks like a third world country. The skyline looks great with beautiful glass clad high-rises lumped in a small area and then abruptly bordered by lush greens (of posh subdivisions, sprawling malls ,and a golf course). Thus the start of my fascination with urban developments, high-rises, skyscrapers, and skylines.

Makati City, I’ve learned used to be vast swamplands (like Iloilo city). Now, it is the financial capital of the Philippines. A city comparable to the capitals of other developing countries and some developed countries. What I liked most about Makati is its skyline, which is dense and clustered with a few nicely designed buidlings and no single supertall lording over all. In some angles (like ones taken with the golf course in the foreground), it looks similar to New York (with Central Park in the foreground).

I hadn’t had the chance to walk around the streets of Makati when I was in high school and college because I didn’t go to Manila that often in the first place (none at all in college, actually). For so long, I wanted to see the buildings up close and personal and not in front of a monitor. My wish came true during my last trip to Manila for the Aliwan Fiesta.

Makati was great. It was clean and orderly. It did not feel overly fake and planned to the core, it was quite like an organic city. Went there during a Sunday and I had Ayala Avenue (the main thoroughfare in Makati) all to myself.

Ayala Avenue with PBCOM, the Philippine’s Tallest Building

Yuchenco Museum

LKG Tower and Smart Tower

Makati Plaza with Roxas Triangle

GT Tower by Metrobank, my favorite high-rise in the Philippines

Skywalk with high-rise condominiums

Ayala Aveue

The Enterprise Tower

Monument for Ninoy Aquino

Don’t know that nearest tall building

PhilamLife Tower

Ayala Tower 1

My Sister posing infront of KPMG

Outside Greenbelt Mall by Ayala

Inside Greenbelt Mall by Ayala

Newest Addition: Greenbelt 5