The Best of 99 Percent Invisible

A few years back, I moved into a Sears building — no, not that famous skyscraper in Chicago, or one of those department stores in the suburbs, but a city block-sized brick behemoth just south of…

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 experience with a record or tape or CD. The…

In the late 1800s, lawyer and inventor Thaddeus Cahill patented his “telharmonium,” a machine which would make music and pipe it across Manhattan along phone lines — a century before Rhapsody and…

Cat ladders, shelves and other feline-oriented designs are commonplace features inside domestic spaces, but in places like Bern, Switzerland, they reach out into the public sphere as as well, merging…

Houseplants are having a moment right now. In 2020, 66% of people in the US owned at least one plant, and sales have skyrocketed during the pandemic. Meanwhile, Instagram accounts like House Plant…

These days, it is easy to go to art stores and buy a variety of paint colors and without needing to understand they come from. But according to The Harvard Art Museums, some of the world’s rarest…

Note: This episode contains references to adult language, and might not be suitable for younger listeners. You’ll likely know within the first fifteen seconds if this episode is appropriate for your…

When we think of the sound of sports on TV or radio, it’s generally commentary. But sports broadcasts would be nothing without all the sounds that are behind the commentary — the crowds, the kicks, the thwacks, and the grunts. During the World Cup of 2010, the constant noise of Vuvuzelas made many people realize that the

Today the Netherlands has a reputation as a kind of bicycling paradise. Dutch people own more bicycles per capita than any other place in the world. The country has more than 20,000 miles of dedicated…

Like its nondescript official name, Armstrong Flooring’s “Pattern #5253” fades easily into the background of memory — a linoleum floor design consisting of zig-zagging faux bricks that squeaks…