A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design
hardcover, 400 pages
Published Oct. 6, 2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
99% Invisible is a big-ideas podcast about small-seeming things, revealing stories baked into the buildings we inhabit, the streets we drive, and the sidewalks we traverse. The show celebrates design and architecture in all of its functional glory and accidental absurdity, with intriguing tales of both designers and the people impacted by their designs.
Now, in The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to Hidden World of Everyday Design, host Roman Mars and coauthor Kurt Kohlstedt zoom in on the various elements that make our cities work, exploring the origins and other fascinating stories behind everything from power grids and fire escapes to drinking fountains and street signs. With deeply researched entries and beautiful line drawings throughout, The 99% Invisible City will captivate devoted fans of the show and anyone curious about design, urban environments, and the unsung marvels of the world around them.
By the makers of the 99% Invisible podcast, this book offers dozens of bite-sized views of the built environment, its limitations, and those who would transcend them.
It has a particular worldview, one somewhere between New Urbanists and City Beautiful. But it acknowledges and calls itself on this view continually, noting that improvement to some is gentrification to others.
