99% Invisible

Roman Mars

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.

  • 32 minutes 30 seconds
    One-Nil to the Arsenal

    A goofy Shakira remix, a nervy penalty kick, and 60,000 fans turning banter into legend—welcome to the world of football chants.

    One-Nil to the Arsenal

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    22 April 2025, 5:10 pm
  • 33 minutes 17 seconds
    I've Got 1099 Problems...

    If you're one of the millions of Americans struggling with your tax forms today, you're not alone. Even Albert Einstein allegedly found income taxes to be "the hardest thing in the world to understand." But how did our tax system become so complicated?

    I've Got 1099 Problems...

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    15 April 2025, 5:15 pm
  • 29 minutes 42 seconds
    Everything Is Tuberculosis

    John Green uncovers how the world’s deadliest curable disease still thrives—and why everything, from cowboy hats to colonial borders, traces back to tuberculosis.

    Everything Is Tuberculosis

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    8 April 2025, 4:33 pm
  • 23 minutes 26 seconds
    A Walking Tour with Mr. Memphis

    Take a whirlwind tour of Memphis with the city’s most enthusiastic historian, uncovering duck parades, telecom turf wars, and a street named after a single day in 1934.

    A Walking Tour with Mr. Memphis

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    4 April 2025, 5:36 pm
  • 35 minutes 41 seconds
    The Great American Pyramid

    In 1991, one of the strangest buildings in America opened — a 32-storey, stainless steel pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee.

    The Great American Pyramid

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    1 April 2025, 8:50 pm
  • 56 minutes 58 seconds
    Secret Mall Apartment

    A group of artists explored the back hallways of a mall in Providence, RI, and found the perfect place to build a private hangout. We interviewed the group's leader Michael Townsend a few years back, and he's now the subject of a new documentary called Secret Mall Apartment. Plus, mall history with Alexandra Lange.

    For showtimes and more information, visit secretmallapartment.com.

    The stories in this episode originally aired in 2018 and 2022.

    Secret Mall Apartments

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    25 March 2025, 8:46 pm
  • 30 minutes 50 seconds
    Beautiful West Oakland, California

    When global trade reshapes a city, who pays the price—and who fights back?

    Alexis Madrigal’s new book is called The Pacific Circuit: A Globalized Account of the Battle for the Soul of an American City.

    Beautiful West Oakland, California

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    18 March 2025, 2:42 pm
  • 34 minutes 53 seconds
    What We're Reading

    After we finished up The Power Broker, a bunch of people were asking us what other books we’d been reading. A group of us got together and presented some of our recent favorites, and the choices were so good and surprising and charming, we're now sharing it widely.

    Here are the books covered in this episode:

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    What We're Reading

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    11 March 2025, 5:50 pm
  • 28 minutes 18 seconds
    A Beetle By Any Other Name

    A tiny, unremarkable beetle hiding in the caves of Slovenia has an infamously unfortunate name—one that has sparked heated debates in the scientific world.

    A Beetle By Any Other Name

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    4 March 2025, 8:23 pm
  • 38 minutes 37 seconds
    The Brutalists

    A film about a struggling architect, a style the world loves to hate—The Brutalist and Brutalism itself share more than just a name. Is it bold vision or concrete failure?

    The Brutalists

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    25 February 2025, 9:15 pm
  • 37 minutes 37 seconds
    The Nazi Block

    In the heart of Berlin’s Tempelhof-Schöneberg district sits a hulking, crumbling concrete cylinder—an abandoned relic of a Nazi plan to rebuild the city as a grand imperial capital. But this eerie structure isn’t just a forgotten engineering experiment; it’s a lasting monument to one of the Third Reich’s most colossal architectural failures.

    The Nazi Block

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    18 February 2025, 11:44 pm
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