I love 99% Invisible. I’ve been listening to the podcast since my freshman year of college (which was in 2011, which…was ten years ago. In other news, I am elderly now.) The book is a series of stories about different pieces of the built world – different design elements that show up in cities, in roads, in buildings, all around us – the things that you see every day but rarely think about.
In Planned Failure, the section about breakaway posts – if you look closely at the bottom of most streetsigns, you notice that the posts aren’t one solid piece – they’re two pieces connected close to the ground. 99% Invisible explains why.
“Posts that hold up signs, street lights, and utility lines need to be strong and durable enough to withstand winds, storms, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Every so often, though, these same posts are called upon to do something crucial but fundamentally at odds with their everyday function: they need to break easily upon impact. If hit by a fast-moving vehicle, post need to come apart in just the right way in order to reduce damage and save lives.”
In Spolia of War, a section about constructive reuse of materials that were originally produced for wars. This was interesting, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen this in the wild, at least not seen and recognized it.
During World War II, more than 600,000 steel stretchers were assembled by British authorities to be deployed in the aftermath of German air raids. These stretchers were designed to be strong and durable but also easy to disinfect in the wake of a gas attack. After the war, though, a surplus of them remained, which led the London County Council to put them to surprising use throughout the city – not as monuments or memorials but as railings along the edges of various estates.”
Again, more “Spolia of War” that I have never seen in the wild.
“Bollards are short posts and have been used for centuries to moor ships, manage urban traffic, and keep pedestrians safe from carriages and later from cars. Historically, most bollards were made of wood, but as early as the seventeenth century, old metal cannons half-buried in the ground began to serve as robust alternatives.”
The background of the biohazard symbol also struck me as fascinating – how do you make a symbol for something that can look like a wide variety of things?
“The world is full of icons that warn us to be afraid – to stay away from this or not do that. Many of these are easy to understand because they represent something recognizable, like a simplified fire icon or a stick-figure person slipping on a wet floor. Others, however, warn us of dangers that are harder to visualize and thus are more difficult to represent or communicate about visually.
“Biological threats are often insidiously invisible, sometimes microscopic, and frequently odorless or tasteless, which makes them hard to symbolize in anything but an abstract way. Still, rooms and packages containing dangerous microorganisms or viruses or toxins need to have high-visibility warnings. Before a unified design standard was developed, scientists working with dangerous biological materials faced a dizzying array of warning labels that varied from one laboratory to the next.”
Once I read this, I started noticing manhole covers, and I have not stopped, and it turns out there is a (man)whole flickr group about them.
“There is a lovely metal manhole cover in Osaka, Japan, that looks more like an ornate woodblock print than a utilitarian municipal disk. On it is a relief of the Osaka Castle wrapped in blue waves and white cherry blossoms that was commissioned to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Osaka becoming a municipality. The design is striking, but this artistic approach is not unique to one city or celebration in Japan. Colorful illustrations of flowers, animals, buildings, bridges, boats, mythical heroes, and rising phoenixes adorn stylized manhole lids across the country.”
I’m tracking all of my books this year on Goodreads, so if Goodreads is your thing, let’s connect, be buddies, read a lot of books, etc.