Shows / 99% Invisible
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.
Episodes
- 99% Invisible
Rocket Man
In the twentieth century, the jetpack became synonymous with the idea of a ‘futuristic society.’ Appearing in cartoons and magazines, it felt like a matter of…
- 99% Invisible
It's Howdy Doody Time!
The Howdy Doody Show is one of those pieces of 1950s ephemera that has come to symbolize mid-century American childhood. For over a decade, every weeknight at…
- 99% Invisible
Towers of Silence: Vulture Conservation
Recently we published an episode called Towers of Silence. It's about how the Parsis in India are grappling with the loss of vultures and how it changed…
- 99% Invisible
Mr. Yuk
Mr. Yuk is a neon green circular sticker with a cartoon face on it. His face is scrunched up with his eyes squeezed tight and his tongue is sticking out of its…
- 99% Invisible
Towers of Silence
Situated right in downtown Mumbai, India is an area of about 55 acres of dense, overgrown forest. In one of the most populous cities in the world, this is a…
99% InvisibleThe Power Broker #4: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
This is the fourth official episode, breaking down the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker by our hero Robert Caro. This week, Roman Mars and…
- 99% Invisible
Anything's Pastable: Eat Sauté Love
This week we're featuring an episode from The Sporkful's series on the creation of "Anything's Pastable," Dan Pashman's new pasta cookbook. Dan talks with…
- 99% Invisible
The Society of Ambiance Makers and Elegant Persons
Hailing from central African cities of Brazzaville and Kinshasa, sapeurs have become increasingly recognizable around the world. Since the 1970s, sapeurs…
- 99% Invisible
Chambre de Bonne
A chambre de bonne is usually one small room, on the top floor of a five- or six-story apartment building, and it’s usually just big enough to fit a bed and a…
99% InvisibleRoman Mars Describes Athens GA As It Is
This is the third and final episode in a three-part series of Roman Mars recording on-location guides to the design features and interesting spots in cities he…
- 99% Invisible
Autism Pleasantville
A few years back, journalist Lauren Ober was diagnosed with autism. She then made a podcast about her experience called The Loudest Girl in the World. And she…
- 99% Invisible
The Monster Under the Sink
In the middle of the 20th century, the small town of Jasper, Indiana did something that no other city had done before: they made garbage illegal. The city…
99% InvisibleThe Power Broker #3: David Sims
This is the third official episode, breaking down the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker by our hero Robert Caro. This week, Roman Mars and…
- 99% Invisible
Toyetic
This year marks the 40th anniversary of a lot of landmarks in pop culture, especially sci-fi and fantasy. So many franchises were born in 1984. Some came to…
- 99% Invisible
WARNING: This Podcast Contains Chemicals Known to the State of California to Cause Cancer or Other Reproductive Harm
Intimidating Proposition 65 warnings can be found on all kinds of products manufactured or distributed in the State of California. They can seem rather…
99% InvisibleRoman Mars Describes Santa Fe As It Is
Roman Mars is on a mission to describe the cities that shaped who he is and how he thinks about design. Next up, Santa Fe. Santa Fe wasn’t always on the…
- 99% Invisible
The Real Book [rebroadcast]
Since the mid-1970s, almost every jazz musician has owned a copy of the same book. It has a peach-colored cover, a chunky, 1970s-style logo, and a black…
99% InvisibleSignificant Others: A Sneak Peek at the Woman Behind Benedict Arnold’s Betrayal
It’s been said that history is written by the person at the typewriter. But who did the person who made history depend on? Often, it’s impossible to find out…
- 99% Invisible
You Are What You Watch
What we see on screen has this way of influencing our perception of the world, which makes sense because the average American spends 2 hours and 51 minutes…
99% InvisibleThe Power Broker #2: Jamelle Bouie
This is the second official episode, breaking down the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker by our hero Robert Caro. This week, Roman Mars and…
- 99% Invisible
The White Castle System of Eating Houses
White Castle has its own take on fast food hamburgers. For starters, the patties are square, with five holes in each patty. And they’re small, too –-…
- 99% Invisible
Between the Blocks
Seen from above, Sofia, Bulgaria, looks less like a city and more like a forest. Large "interblock park" green spaces between big apartment structures are a…
- 99% Invisible
Don't Forget to Remember
When a highway gets made, there’s a clear and consistent process for doing so. Not so, public memorials. From the Vietnam Wall to the National Memorial for…
99% InvisibleRoman Mars Describes Chicago As It Is
A few years ago, at the very start of the pandemic, Roman Mars wrote an episode of 99pi in which he simply talked about design details in his house --…
- 99% Invisible
The Double Kick
Watch a skate video today, and you'll notice how similarly shaped the boards are. It’s called the “popsicle” design, because the deck is narrow in the middle…
99% InvisibleThe Power Broker #1: Robert Caro
Welcome to our first official episode, breaking down the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker by our hero Robert Caro. Robert Caro happens to be…
- 99% Invisible
Imitation Nation
Fake cities. Imitation nations. People role-playing as civilians, spies, or enemies, complete with costumes and props. It's all part of an effort coordinated…
- 99% Invisible
Mini-Stories: Volume 18
Our second and final set of mini-stories for the season: We'll be covering upside-down construction, the linguistics of filler and a fire that has been burning…
- 99% Invisible
Another Visit from the Three Santas of Slovenia
We're revisiting this Christmas classic from 2021. Happy Holidays! Slovenia is a small country in Central Europe nestled between Italy, Austria, Croatia and…
- 99% Invisible
Mini-Stories: Volume 17
It's the most wonderful time of the year. It's mini-stories season! Gather the kids around the fire because We have a year-end mix of short stories about a…
- 99% Invisible
Empire of the Sum
Keeping track of numbers has always been part of what makes us human. So at some point along the way, we created a tool to help us keep count, and then we gave…
99% InvisibleBreaking Down The Power Broker (with Conan O'Brien)
Today's episode features #1 Robert Caro superfan, Conan O'Brien. The Power Broker by Robert Caro is a biography of Robert Moses, who is said to have built more…
99% InvisibleThe Known Unknown [rebroadcast]
Roman note: This is one of my favorite episodes of all time. Should be a movie. Enjoy! The tradition of the Tomb of the Unknowns goes back only about a…
- 99% Invisible
Long Strange Tape
The Cassette tape was great in so many ways, but let’s be honest, they never really sounded great. But because the cassette was so much cheaper and easier to…
- 99% Invisible
Home on the Range
In a lot of ways, Lincoln Heights, Ohio, sounds just like any other suburb. If you walk around town, you’ll hear kids playing outside the local elementary…
- 99% Invisible
The Six-Week Cure
In the mid-1900s, people flocked to Reno, Nevada -- not for frontier gold or loose slots, but to get out of bad marriages. The city became known as the…
- 99% Invisible
The Fever Tree Hunt
Most heists target gold, jewels or cash. This one targeted illegal seeds. As the British established their sprawling empire across the subcontinent and beyond…
- 99% Invisible
Model Village
For decades, society has dealt with people with dementia and other forms of cognitive decline by storing them away in unstimulating, medicalized environments…
- 99% Invisible
Devolutionary Redesign
It’s hard to overstate just how important record album art was to music in the days before people downloaded everything. Visuals were a key part of one's…
- 99% Invisible
You Ain’t Nothin But a Postmark
Over a decade after Elvis Presley’s death, the king of rock & roll took over headlines once again as Americans weighed in on which portrait of Elvis would be…
- 99% Invisible
The Big Dig
Over its more than 40 year journey from conception to completion, Boston’s Big Dig massive infrastructure project, which rerouted the central highway in the…
- 99% Invisible
Devil in the Details
This week we have two stories featuring the devil. An infamous "training video" teaching cops how to spot and stop "satanic crimes." And a stretch of highway…
- 99% Invisible
Cautionary Tales of the Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is one of the most iconic and distinctive buildings in the world. It took a relative newcomer and architectural outsider to dream it up…
- 99% Invisible
Blood in the Machine
Brian Merchant is a tech reporter, and he'd been covering the industry for years when he started to notice a term that kept coming up. When he wrote a story…
- 99% Invisible
Whomst Among Us Let the Dogs Out AGAIN
All kinds of songs get stuck in your head. Famous pop tunes from when you were a kid, album cuts you've listened to over and over again. And then there's a…
- 99% Invisible
Office Space
In most big cities, there’s a housing crisis. And empty office buildings are creating a different crisis known to urbanists as a ‘doom loop.’ Converting an…
- 99% Invisible
Melanie Speaks
The story of a voice training VHS tape that helped trans women at a time when other resources were hard to access. The way a person's voice changes over time…
- 99% Invisible
Trail Mix: Track Two
Welcome to our second episode of short stories all about what may be the original designed object: the trail. If you haven’t heard the first episode yet you…
- 99% Invisible
Trail Mix
We deconstruct and examine what might be the original designed object-- the humble trail. We discuss how park trails are designed, what makes a good trail…
- 99% Invisible
Cooking with Gas
Back in January, Bloomberg News published a story quoting an obscure government official named Richard Trumka Jr. He works with the Consumer Product Safety…
- 99% Invisible
The Country of the Blind
Andrew Leland grew up with full vision, but starting in his teenage years, his sight began to degrade from the outside in, such that he now sees the world as…
- 99% Invisible
Shade Redux
This past May, the city of Los Angeles rolled out a brand new, state-of-the art feature for bus shelters. It’s called La Sombrita. La Sombrita is a metal…
- 99% Invisible
Chick Tracts
In the 1980s, the little Christian comic books known as Chick Tracts were EVERYWHERE. You’d find them in movie theaters and bus station bathrooms, on subways…
- 99% Invisible
In Proximity: Ryan Coogler and Roman Mars
In Proximity is a podcast from Proximity Media about craft, career, and creativity. Proximity founder Ryan Coogler talks all about podcasts with Roman Mars…
- 99% Invisible
Player Piano
This week we're featuring an episode of The Last Archive The Last Archive is a history show. Our evidence is the evidence of history, the evidence of archives…
- 99% Invisible
The Frankfurt Kitchen
After World War I, in Frankfurt, Germany, the city government was taking on a big project. A lot of residents were in dire straits, and in the second half of…
- 99% Invisible
The Siren of Scrap Metal
Amid the noisy bustle of Mexico City, there is a particularly iconic sound echoing on repeat in the background. This recording blares from trucks that cruise…
- 99% Invisible
Courtroom Sketch
As electronic news gathering was gaining prominence in the early 20th century, the American Bar Association began to fear its effect on court trials and…
- 99% Invisible
Goodnight Nobody [rebroadcast]
The unlikely battle between the creator of the New York Public Library children's reading room and the beloved children’s classic Goodnight Moon. Goodnight…
- 99% Invisible
Train Set: Track Three
Happy National Train Day, everyone – for those of you who missed it: that was May 13th this year. A year ago, we started down this path with Train Set: Track…