99% Invisible

It sounds very much like you've been reading Ayn Rand.

Well, it's both a great movie and a terrible movie, right? So 1949, The Fountainhead, based on the novel by Ayn Rand and directed by King Vidor.

And the lead character in the film, played by Gary Cooper, is this architect named Howard Rourke. And he's a very dogmatic modernist.

Now Roman have you ever read the book Eminent Victorians by litten straitji?

He's just writing about how what hypocrites they were how what you know just scan

Eminent Victorians, a satirical book in a way about, it's like a burn book about Victorian society.

So this sort of became famous because this author, John Green, wrote a book called Paper Towns that is set in Aglo, New York.

And he gave a TEDx talk about Aglo, New York and about the concept of Paper Towns as well.

And it was since turned into a movie.

So this sort of became famous because this author, John Green, wrote a book called Paper Towns that is set in Aglo, New York.

And he gave a TEDx talk about Aglo, New York and about the concept of Paper Towns as well.

And it was since turned into a movie.

I think part of the whole argument of this book is really that people are social creatures and that the mall had to be created because the suburbs didn't really Initially like think about a space for people to come together Even though we're past the heyday of them all

Alexandra Lange's book is called Meet Me by the Fountain an inside history of the mall

And if you buy the book, which I highly recommend and you flip it over and look at the back cover You will find that someone has written it's an architectural page-turner this insightful witty and smart book Captures everything compelling and confounding about the American mall

That's how much I believe in this book. You should get it

Alexandra is the author of a new book called Meet Me by the Fountain.

Alexandra Leng's book is called Meet Me by the Fountain, an inside history of the mall. And if you buy the book, which I highly recommend, and you flip it over and you look at the back cover, you will find that someone has written. It's an architectural page turner. This insightful, witty, and smart book captures everything compelling and confounding about the American mall.

Also Middlesex town moderator Susan Clark co-authored a book called Slow Democracy Rediscovering community and bringing decision-making back home It's about all of the things that they talked about here and a lot more and it's really good I'll put a link to it on the website

Also Middlesex town moderator Susan Clark co-authored a book called Slow Democracy Rediscovering community and bringing decision-making back home It's about all of the things that they talked about here and a lot more and it's really good I'll put a link to it on the website

That's Rosemary Thornton, an architectural historian and the author of The Houses That Sears Built.

That's Rosemary Thornton, an architectural historian and the author of The Houses That Sears Built.

But to get to that, first we have to start with the beginning of average.

My name is Todd Rose. I am the director of the Mind, Brain, and Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

He's also the author of the book The End of Average.

He's also the author of the book The End of Average.

If you want to know more, maybe you want to know how average came to mean subpar instead of ideal, check out Todd Rose's book. It's called The End of Average, How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness.

That's Ken Ilgunis, author of This Land Is Your Land: How We Lost the Right to Roam and How to Take It Back.

That's Ken Ilgunas, author of This Land Is Your Land, How We Lost the Right to Roam and How to Take It Back.

He teamed up with Darren Naish and another paleo artist named Memo Kofman and published a slim little paperback called All Yesterdays.

All Yesterdays is filled with dinosaurs that look very different from what you're used to.

We talk about the All Yesterdays movement as like it's the new frontier of the way we should depict prehistoric animals.

John eventually decided to give the world some of that magic in the form of a book. He teamed up with Darren Naish and another paleo artist named Memo Kozman and published a slim little paperback called All Yesterdays.

All Yesterdays is filled with dinosaurs that look very different from what you're used to.

We talk about the All Yesterdays movement as like it's the new frontier of the way we should depict prehistoric animals.

Sandy Allen is an author. Their book is called a kind of miraculous paradise. Learn more about their work at hello sandyallen.com.

They wrote a book called A Kind of Miraculous Paradise about mental health care in America.

read their book A Kind of Miraculous Paradise a true story about schizophrenia it was published by Scribner and is now out in paperback

I was sitting on my back porch in Wyoming one night, you know, as the sun sank in the Golden West, and I just jumped up out of the chair and like shrieked at my husband, The Post Office Created America.

That is author and historian Winifred Gallagher, and she wrote a book based on this revelation called Appropriately. How the Post Office Created America, A History.

Gallagher argues that the Post Office didn't just create an efficient and inexpensive way to send a letter from Oakland, California into the Grand Canyon.

The service was designed to unite a bunch of disparate towns and people under one flag, and in doing so, the Post Office actually created the United States of America.

If the post office truly created America, and I think Winifred Gallagher makes a pretty good case that it did, it's now playing a more supporting role.

I was sitting on my back porch in Wyoming one night, you know, as the sun sank in the golden west, and I just jumped up out of the chair and like shrieked at my husband, the post office created America.

The post office didn't just create an efficient and inexpensive way to send a letter from Oakland, California into the Grand Canyon. The service was designed to unite a bunch of disparate towns and people under one flag, and in doing so, the post office actually created the United States of America.

I believe that the process of going around and thinking about these 13 colonies as not just disconnected but links in a chain, I think this started him thinking about ways that they could come together as a people.

If the post office truly created America, and I think Winifred Gallagher makes a pretty good case that it did, it's now playing a more supporting role.

Conservatives talk about privatizing the whole operation, but right now Gallagher doubts that this is possible. Actually, the private competitors, neither FedEx or UPS is equipped to handle the volume of American mail.

The title of Thomas Church's book was actually, Gardens Are for People.

In Gardens Are for People, he asked hypothetical clients, how much do you really like to garden?

In Gardens Are for People, he asked hypothetical clients, how much do you really like to garden? If you don't want to garden, the paving makes a lot of sense.

since Learning from Las Vegas came out and ended up being such a tome for architects they address that very thing of when is when is kitsch okay when is populist architecture okay.

And we covered a lot of this stuff in a story Avery did about Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi about you know Learning from Las Vegas.

Learning from Las Vegas challenged architects to take the architecture of Vegas, what they called the architecture of the American highway, seriously.

And that it too has a structure and it too has lessons that we can learn from.

It's not just saying, hey, Vegas is cool. It's saying here's a whole approach to the world that we actually live in.

By 1980, Learning from Las Vegas becomes a text assigned in every architecture school.

Although Venturi got most of the credit... Learning from Las Vegas derives from Denise's experience on the Strip, which she then invited Venturi along for.

Joel Beckerman has written a book, it's called The Sonic Boom, How Sound Transforms the Way We Think, Feel and Buy. Go check it out.

Joel Beckerman has written a book. It's called The Sonic Boom, How Sound Transforms the Way We Think, Feel and Buy. Go check it out.

Ellen Dunham Jones' book is called Retrofitting Suburbia.

Part two of 99% Invisible was produced by Avery Truffleman. This story was largely inspired by Jennifer A. Lee's book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, which goes into even more depths about the origin of American Chinese cuisine. And believe me, there are way deeper depths to explore.

This episode was largely inspired by Jennifer A. Lee's book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, which goes into even more depth about the origins of American Chinese cuisine. And believe me, there are way deeper depths. It's a great read.