Review | Urban design explained: the signs, the symbols, the mysterious objects, and why LED panels have replaced the glow of neon
- Cities surround us with arcane signs, symbols and objects of unsuspected meaning, says American radio producer Roman Mars in his new book The 99% Invisible City
- Mars provides an offbeat guide ‘to decoding the built world’
The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design by Roman Mars (and Kurt Kohlstedt), Hodder & Stoughton. 4/5 stars
All this time we’ve been looking the wrong way, literally and metaphorically. “Wow!” skyscrapers. Check. Parks holding back the urban spew. Check. Infinite bridges, sensational homes, revolving restaurants crowning space needles, pseudo-Gothic triumphs, brutalist concrete boxes with a certain sneaky charm. Check, check, check.
But to understand how cities really work, what we should be looking at, says architecture and design radio show host Roman Mars, is “the boring stuff”, not Instagramable landmarks or expensive civic statements, but neglected features essential to the urban fabric. The 99% sorts the utilitarian facade from the flamboyant colonnade and the functional, multi-storey box from the latest multi-storey exclamation mark built by this week’s “starchitect”, and celebrates their existence.
So let’s hear it for the unloved, unremarked-on underparts, because the specifics of good design can be found there, too, inspired by construction problems, community needs or historical strictures.
Based on the long-running 99% Invisible podcast – and presenting a torrent of topics in 350 detail-rich pages – this offbeat “guide to decoding the built world” proves that beauty isn’t always in the eye of the beholder.
