Dirty Old River brings together 12 essays penned by British architect Tom Emerson over the past
three decades. Written on very different occasions as contributions to books or articles in
magazines they explore a wide range of topics through the lens of architecture. The book's
title is borrowed from the British rock band The Kinks' cult song Waterloo Sunset to symbolize
a journey through the interweaving of culture imagination and the built environment.
Naturally the architect Emerson writes about architecture: how it is designed drawn and
built. Yet he also turns his attention to other wider fields from the transformation of
materials to the nuances of human creativity the explosive early works of his celebrated
fellow architect Frank O. Gehry and the intimate craftsmanship behind the literary spaces of
French writer Georges Perec. Emerson's unique approach to writing is often inspired by
sideways glances and disciplines beyond architecture. He offers a new perspective on how things
are made why they take shape the way they do and what these processes reveal about humanity.
