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 transcribedThere have been many waves of panic and resistance to new people moving into the public sphere and needing accommodation. And a focus of that panic ha...
After the 1970s oil crisis, the global economy went into a recession. American unemployment hit 11 percent. And suddenly, middle-class families didn’t...
Winifred Gallagher, author of How the Post Office Created America argues that the post office is not simply an inexpensive way to send a letter. The s...
Before the twentieth century, most Americans rarely came into contact with police officers. But with more and more drivers behind the wheel, police de...
Walter Thompson-Hernandez was just eleven years old when he was admitted to L.A.'s infamous Scared Straight program for graffiti related crimes. In th...
About an hour northwest of Madrid, an enormous stone crucifix rises 500 feet out of a rocky mountaintop. It’s so big you can see it from miles away. B...
When Emily Oberman found a flag of the island nation of Anguilla her father had helped design in her attic, she had no idea it was connected to one of...
There are many books about McDonald’s that criticize the company for its many sins, and author Marcia Chatelain has read all of them. But her book com...
One night halfway through a graveyard shift at the hospital, orderly John Moon watched as two young men burst through the doors. They were working des...
All across the country, protestors have been tearing down old monuments. These monuments have been falling in the middle of historic protests against...
In the US, mascots are used to pump up crowds at sporting events, or for traumatizing generations of children at Chuck E. Cheese, but in Japan it’s di...
If you’re on Instagram, there’s a decent chance you’ve seen a picture of one particular building called the Yardhouse. It was designed by the London-b...
A wedding was once seen as a start of young adulthood. Now, a wedding has come to represent a crowning achievement -- a symbol that your whole life is...
Diamonds represent value, in all its multiple meanings: values, as in ethics, and value as in actual price. But what are these rocks actually worth? T...
Menswear can seem boring. If you look at any award show, most of the men are dressed in black pants and black jackets. This uniform design can be trac...
The world of high end perfume is surprisingly lucrative, considering that scent is often the most ignored of our senses. But one can't judge a scent s...
Brands hold immense sway over both consumers and the American legal system. Few know this as well as Dapper Dan, who went from street hustler to fashi...
In the wake of World War II, the government of France commissioned its most prominent designers to create a collection of miniature fashion dolls. It...
In general, the coronavirus shutdowns have been terrible for academic research. Trips have been canceled, labs have shut down, and long-running experi...
There have been over 200,000 deaths as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. All have been tragic, but there are two people in particular we’ve lost d...
