99% Invisible

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 transcribed
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Arts

258- The Modern Necropolis

Episode Date: May 10, 2017

In the town of Colma, California, the dead outnumber the living by a thousand to one. Located just ten miles south of San Francisco, Colma is filled w...

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257- Reversing the Grid

Episode Date: May 3, 2017

For most people, electricity only flows one way (into the home), but there are exceptions — people who use solar panels, for instance. In those cases,...

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Arts

256- Sounds Natural

Episode Date: April 19, 2017

In most wildlife films, the sounds you hear were not recorded while the cameras were rolling. Most filmmakers use long telephoto lenses to film animal...

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Arts

254- Containers

Episode Date: April 4, 2017

We’re based in beautiful downtown Oakland, CA which is a port city in the San Francisco Bay. Massive container ships travel across the Pacific and end...

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253- Manzanar

Episode Date: March 29, 2017

When Warren Furutani was growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950s, he sometimes heard his parents refer to a place where they once spent time — a place...

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252- The Falling of the Lenins

Episode Date: March 22, 2017

On the night of December 8, 2013, a huge crowd gathered on a tree-lined boulevard in downtown Kiev, Ukraine. The crowd was there to watch as a statue...

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250- State (Sanctuary, Part 2)

Episode Date: March 8, 2017

In the 1980s, the United States experienced a refugee crisis. Thousands of Central Americans were fleeing civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, tra...

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248- Atom in the Garden of Eden

Episode Date: February 22, 2017

As the world entered the Atomic Age, humankind faced a new fear that permeated just about every aspect of daily life: the threat of nuclear war. And w...

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247- Usonia the Beautiful

Episode Date: February 15, 2017

Frank Lloyd Wright believed that the buildings we live in shape the kinds of people we become. His aim was nothing short of rebuilding the entire cult...

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246- Usonia 1

Episode Date: February 8, 2017

Frank Lloyd Wright was a bombastic character that ultimately changed the field of architecture, and not just through his big, famous buildings. Before...

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245- The Eponymist

Episode Date: February 1, 2017

Eponym (noun):  A person after whom a discovery, invention, place, etc., is named or thought to be named; a name or noun formed after a person. An epo...

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244- The Revolutionary Post

Episode Date: January 25, 2017

Winifred Gallagher, author of How the Post Office Created America: A History, argues that the post office is not simply an inexpensive way to send a l...

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242- Mini-Stories: Volume 2

Episode Date: January 11, 2017

Part 2 where host Roman Mars talks to the 99pi producers about their favorite “Mini-Stories.” These are little anecdotes or seeds of a story about des...

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241- Mini-Stories: Volume 1

Episode Date: December 20, 2016

Host Roman Mars talks to the 99pi producers about their favorite “Mini-Stories.” These are little anecdotes or seeds of a story about design and archi...

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Arts

240- Plat of Zion

Episode Date: December 14, 2016

The urban grid of Salt Lake City, Utah is designed to tell you exactly where you are in relation to Temple Square, one of the holiest sites for Mormon...

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239- Guano Island

Episode Date: December 7, 2016

In 2014, President Obama expanded the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, making it the largest marine preserve in the world at the time....