[V K Lee]

Water falling from that height might be a life-threatening circumstance. Who would be idiotic enough to stand beneath Niagara Falls? A brisk shower, it is NOT.

BTW, though not a multi story hotel, a city not far from us has a restaurant with slanted, angled windows. You can sit in the place and watch the falls cascade down the window for a perfectly pleasant experience with some safety; it is only a one level building.

Frank Lloyd Wright has involuntarily shown us that water and buildings are not companions. His famous “Falling Water” house, it has been heard, has proven this to be true.

[poconopundit]

Frank Lloyd Wright. Your memory is excellent. An avant-garde architect who understood practical design.

You're right, from a purely safety point of view this Chinese building is a monstrosity. Architects in the Ming dynasty surely had more common sense.

The Japanese are very innovative architects. But then again, they had to be. The country is very mountainous and the natural beauty comes from that. But just about every river that passes through a city in Japan has to be lined with concrete walls because the typhoon rains are deadly with lots of mudslides.

America is much flatter terrain. So as I like to say: America is a nation of lawyers. Japan is a nation of engineers.

Here's a view form the look out that guards the harbor of Sasebo, Nagasaki prefecture, in Japan. It's where I lived for three years and met my wife.