Design is everywhere in our lives, perhaps most importantly in the places where we've just stopped noticing. 99% Invisible is a weekly exploration of the process and power of design and architecture. From award winning producer Roman Mars. Learn more at 99percentinvisible.org.
692 episodes transcribedWhat makes The Power Broker endure 50 years on? Roman Mars and Elliott Kalan sit down with legendary author Robert Caro to explore the humanity, drama...
This is the eleventh official episode, breaking down the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker by our hero Robert Caro. This week, Roman...
Roman talks with The Memory Palace creator Nate DiMeo, whose new book brings his poetic history podcast to life on the page. They explore how moments...
As the last warmth of summer fades, Riis Beach—a hidden queer oasis behind a decaying hospital—faces a new reality. With its shadowy protector demolis...
Remember when grocery shelves went bare and cargo ships clogged the California coast? That chaos wasn’t just a pandemic hiccup—it was a symptom of a s...
Every fall, a vacant Toronto storefront is possessed by Spirit Halloween, the pop-up shop haunting 1,500 empty spaces across North America. What does...
This is the tenth official episode, breaking down the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker by our hero Robert Caro. This week, Roman and...
Today, we have three stories about designs meant to fool you. Camouflage meant to fool U-boats. Highways designed to fool your brain into going way fa...
In this bonus episode, Roman unearths the surprising story behind the 99% Invisible's name and delves into the unnoticed brilliance of everyday design...
In the heart of Copenhagen, a former military base transformed into Christiania, a self-proclaimed anarchist commune where residents built a new way o...
The unexpected story of how Alfred Nobel’s invention of dynamite—designed to build the world—was co-opted by anarchists to bring about its destruction...
What started as Emily Nussbaum’s “guilty pleasure” of watching Big Brother became a deeper dive into the world of reality TV, leading to her book, Cue...
This is the ninth official episode, breaking down the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker by our hero Robert Caro. This week, Roman and...
Karen MacDonough had paid her mortgage for years, raised her family, and lived a quiet life in her Quincy, Massachusetts home—until one day, a group o...
Once considered the most dangerous city in the world due to drug cartel violence, by the early 2000s Medellin had reinvented itself. But gentrificatio...
The impacts of climate disasters are often measured in terms of property damage. But in places like Phoenix, Arizona, and in hot places all over the w...
Most of the stories in this series have been about places that are ill-prepared for the extreme weather that is coming their way. But this story is ab...
All across the country thousands of people are living in locations that regularly flood, and many of these places will only get more flood-prone as th...
Insurance companies are not climate activists, but they know more about climate risk than just about anyone. And as storms get more extreme and unpred...
In disasters where a lot of people lose their homes, the impacts are not confined to a single city or town. They ripple outward, cascading into the su...
