Sundowners: Recent Episodes

Sarah Rovang

A weekly(ish) podcast about architecture, place, and global travel, created by John Golden and Sarah Rovang, H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellow.

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At long last, our very last episode of Sundowners! We look back on an amazing year of travel and personal growth.

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A special episode for the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preservation Leadership Forum Blog on audioguides, industrial heritage sites, storytelling, and visitor experience.

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After a long break from podcasting, Sarah and John catch up about a busy month. John has started his new job, and Sarah has been in Scandinavia, Paris, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Switzerland.

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Part two of special podcast created for the Society of Architectural Historians, as my monthly Brooks blog report for April 2019. talk about what it means to hear industrial heritage sites as contemporary listeners, and how sound can be effectively curated and deployed as part of a public history experience.

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Part one of special podcast created for the Society of Architectural Historians, as my monthly Brooks blog report for April 2019. In this part, we talk about the soundscapes of industrial heritage, how sound impacts our experience of architecture, and how we can understand the different types of sound we might encounter at an industrial heritage site.

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John gets a job that warrants a lot of explanation; Sarah is in Copenhagen with friends.

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Sarah and John go without their phones for a day in Stockholm and Santa Fe, and reflect on the how smart phones have transformed global travel.

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This week on Sundowners, a deep dive into industrial sound and what we can learn from listening to the built environment. Featuring the sounds of coal mines, windmills, cotton looms, and two very talkative dogs.

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Windmills, steam pumps, and food poisoning in the Netherlands. Plus our reflections back on 5 months of traveling together in 2018.

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Sarah explores parks in Paris and muses on industrial heritage tourism across Europe. John battles a fickle smoke detector.

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Sarah encounters a mercury mine and some impressive socialist architecture in Slovenia; John hears a pack of coyotes.

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Sarah explores a utopian company town near Milan and learns how to travel on her own. John feeds the blue jays and critiques this year’s Super Bowl ads.

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A new season, a new format while Sarah is away in Europe and John is home in Santa Fe.

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Altiplano tourist traps, abandoned nitrate mines, desert flamingos, and Christmas in a fancy chain hotel in Santiago.

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Adventures in Chilean ghost towns, labor history, and reflections on time spent in historic Iquique. Plus the joy of rogue Christmas parades.

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John turns 30 in an industrial port town with a great beach; also historic wooden architecture and more cheap thrill boat rides.

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Hyper-local architecture on a magical Chilean island, adventures in local cuisine, and what makes a nation a nation.

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Santiago’s urban vibe, German colonial architecture, and how we were foiled by ferries on the Carretera Austral.

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Culture and politics in Chile’s capital city, plus a 12 hour tour of an abandoned copper mining town in the mountains.

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A new week; a new continent. Settling into a vibrant port city with stunning street art while enjoy the comforts of home cooking and a familiar writing system.

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A wrap up of our time in Japan, and a ranking of highlights and top experiences from the last two months.

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Back in Tokyo, we reflect on multi-faceted Japan and the unique experience of encountering open air architecture museums.

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Encountering tourist traps, looking back at industrial heritage site visits, and reflecting on the architectural landscape of Japan.

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At the halfway point in our trip together, we reflect back on what it’s been like so far, and look forward to the second half of the journey.

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Finally finding the narrative thread in Japan, challenging culinary experiences, and coal mine tourism.

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Exploring industrial heritage in the south of Japan and a unique forest island.

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Seafood, “ruin porn,” and summer tourism in and around Sapporo and Hakodate.

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Hawker centers, heritage in the wilds of urban Singapore, and meditations on the nature of Japanese architecture.

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This week we conclude our time in South Africa, and discuss our last few days in Cape Town as well as broader takeaways.

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Part 1 of our time in Cape Town. We talk about some of the big tourism site we visited with Devon last week.

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The one where Sarah and John discover they are not “winelands” people.

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Reflections on navigating a South African road trip, plus insights into two very different mining heritage experiences.

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Updates from the road after leaving Jo’burg and a few days on safari in Klaserie & Kruger.

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The first Sundowners episode from the road; the first of two parts reflecting on our time in Johannesburg.

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Introducing Sundowners, a podcast about place, architecture, and global travel.