Creativity key for us to reap from our watercourses

As a student of architecture at the University of Nairobi, one of the marvels of architecture that we studied was a small house in rural Pennsylvania USA, that had come to be known as the Fallingwater House. The house was designed in 1935 by the world-famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, as a weekend home for Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann of the then prestigious Kaufmann’s Department Store.

The Kaufmann’s had this piece of land cut in the middle by a river gorge and a steep waterfall. Not sure how to use it, they contracted Frank Lloyd Wright for a design. Wright came up with an extremely creative house built across the gorge and partly over the waterfall. It became an immediate architectural masterpiece and is a tourist attraction to this day. In 1966, it was designated a National Historic Landmark and is now listed among Smithsonian’s “Life List of 28 places to visit before you die.” The American Institute of Architects later declared it the “best all-time work of American architecture” and in 2007 ranked it 29th on the list of America’s Favourite Architecture.