Kitengela Glass House

PHOTOS Jac De Villiers WORDS Emily Veitch

Over the past 30 years, the Kenyan plains have yielded a magical sculpture and mosaic garden where artisans transform recycled glass into beautiful artworks, jewellery and homeware.

Maximum meaning, minimal means. This simple approach is the structure upon which Nani Croze’s Kitengela Glass paradise near the Nairobi National Park was built.

Nani was born in Germany into a family of artists who encouraged her natural creative ability from an early age. But it was when she moved to Africa that she discovered her true artistic passion.

In the early 1970s Nani and her then husband, animal behaviourist Harvey Croze, moved from the Serengeti to Kenya where she began to paint murals for extra income to help support their three children.

Two years later and newly single, she was left with a large plot of land she and Harvey had bought from a Masai chief. Nani decided to use her artistry to bring a dream to life. She travelled to London to learn stained-glass production techniques and returned to her African home to put her new skills into practice. 

The challenges were many. Early commissions in Nairobi were few and far between, and the glass, which was costly and imported, had to be transported over kilometres of rough road.

But Nani’s resourceful business mind was brought to life after her current partner, Eric Krystall, bought her a kiln. She realised she could diminish costs by recycling and creating her own coloured material, so employed the foreman of a collapsed local glass plant to assist. Her new plan in full swing, Nani began producing original stained-glass work and orders flowed in. 

The land became peppered with thatched clay huts studded with sparkling stained-glass windows and ornate doors and windows. Nani’s inspiration from the wildlife she so loves is evident in sculptures and murals – her braai the jaws of a dragon, her pool displaying the humps of a mythical sea creature. Bridges and wrought-iron staircases lead to breathtaking balconies, while concrete and slabs of brilliant glass create tunnels and arches overhead. Haunting sculptures, built initially for shade in the otherwise barren land, loom everywhere.

Today, Kitengela employs 35 local people and is now a community for skilled artisans. The effect of the studio’s relentlessly optimistic attitude can also be felt by Kenya’s wider public, as Nani’s work can be seen in glass faces at children’s institutes, in murals and benches at general hospitals, and in sculptures for women’s workshops.

But even as the studio garners interest abroad, it remains firmly rooted in its environment, particularly as Nani has bought a buffer zone around it as a wildlife sanctuary. This is a place where lions, leopards and pythons pose threats to the livestock the family keep; children walk barefoot to the efficient bush school Nani has created; roads don’t exist; nor do running water and electricity. 

Thirty years in the making, Kitengela remains a reminder of the wild, simple life; a mad jumble of reality, dream, thought and imagination. 

Kitengela Glass +254 (0)20 675 0602, nani@kitengelaglass.co.ke, kitengela.com