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RM Roman Mars Radio producer and host who covers design and the built environment.

“If I show you a building, I think you have a reaction to the building because of what you're exposed to and what you like and don't like. But if I could tell you the story of a building, I can make you fall in love with it. And then you see it. And then all of a sudden you see the merits, usually in its function, over your initial sort of take on its aesthetics.”

Conversations with Tyler · Ideas & Essays · October 2026

“If I show you a building, I think you have a reaction to the building because of what you're exposed to and what you like and don't like. But if I could tell you the story of a building, I can make you fall in love with it. And then you see it. And then all of a sudden you see the merits, usually in its function, over your initial sort of take on its aesthetics.” — Roman Mars, Conversations with Tyler

Context

Tyler Cowen asked what's gained by making an audio-only show about visual design. Mars said it gets around people's biases: telling the story of a design and the intentions behind it, rather than letting listeners react to how it looks.

Transcript

Conversations with Tyler Around 42:55 into the episode
Roman Mars

…live here, or at least they did when they mostly lived here. Now they mostly live in colleges around the country, but I can hear everything in the house. So it's not perfect in that sense. But if they turn on a faucet in the kitchen, I can hear it. But other than that, I love my studio. It's great.

Tyler Cowen

What do you think are the advantages of doing a podcast or radio show about visual objects, but the show itself is audio only?

Roman Mars

Yeah. It has to do with overcoming people's biases. If I show you a building, I think you have a reaction to the building because of, you know, like what you're exposed to and what you like and don't like, and for all kinds of reasons, and good and bad. But if I could tell you the story of a building, I can make you fall in love with it. And then you see it. And then all of a sudden you see the merits, usually in its function over your initial sort of take on its aesthetics. And I think that there's something about when I was developing the show, you know, like 16, 17 years ago, I was really into that idea of telling the story of design versus having people react to the visuals of design and that it told a different story that was nice and needed to be told about intentionality and the things that we make and do and surround ourselves with.

Tyler Cowen

Now, you've been extremely productive and for a long period of time in the worlds of podcast, radio, and also writing. What do you think is your most unusual successful work habit?

Roman Mars

Huh. Unusual.

Tyler Cowen

So if you said, oh, I wake up early every morning, not everyone does it, but it's not unusual, right?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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