Welcome to the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service. This is a series that gets in the minds of some of the world's most creative people.

I'm Ellen Weedon and I'm about to meet me Alera, a landscape architect who wants to

resurrect the Los Angeles River.

Now it's time to really say the river can come back.

This is L.A.

and yes, L.A. does have a river running through it.

See, unlike the Hudson, the Thames, or the Sen,

LA's main waterway isn't exactly the city's calling card.

That's because most people seeing the river for the first time, including LA Times journalist Pat Morrison, don't recognize it as a river.

When I came here and the first time I started driving around when I was 16, I crossed this gulch, this concrete

gulch, and there was a sign, maybe the size of an index car that debating society uses that says Los Angeles River and I thought no come on

To the naked eye most of the river actually looks like a storm drain. And that dissonance between what most people

think a river should look like versus what the LA River actually is has meant that it's long

been a symbol of the surreal. or to adapt Crater Face's most famous line in the film

Greece when it comes to the look of the L.A. River, the rules are there ain't no rules.

For most of its modern life, the LA River has been made to play something other than itself. Place for car races, murders and music videos.

Like in Greece, actually, when Sandy, played by Olivia Newton

John, watches from the river's concrete banks as Danny, played by John Travolta, speeds

along the hard riverbed in a pivotal drag race with Craterface.

Or in Point Blank and other LA Noire films which use the Riverbed stark desolate concrete in scenes depicting cold-blooded killings.

And let's not forget the roll call of music videos where the river cameos, with the likes

of Madonna, Kendrick Lamar, and Phrell Williams all gracing the concrete.

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