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My interview with Eliyahu (Eli) Keller concerns ruin. What motivates us to return, time and again, to the site of a disaster and have the strength to rebuild? What draws us to ruin, even in the midsts of happiness? Eli and I discuss the influence of the cold war and images of nuclear annihilation on architecture in the 1950’s and 60s. Eli comes to the PhD program from Israel, and in relation to his work, we discuss Judaism and Judaic texts centered on ruin and rebuilding as a fundamental act of faith.

Eli Keller is an architect, and architectural historian currently pursuing a Ph.D. in History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture and Art program at the MIT Department of Architecture. He is the co-editor of the 46th volume of the department’s peer-reviewed journal Thresholds, published by the MIT Press. Eliyahu holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Israel, and a Master in Design Studies with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. His doctoral research investigates the relationships between the rise of nuclear weapons, apocalyptic thinking and visionary architectural production during the Cold War in the United States and the Soviet Union.

To hear more from Eli, listen to his internet broadcast show on WAWD? Radio, Kelly and Eli Smiling Through the Apocalypse, with Kelly Main. Airing Thursday nights at 7pm, they focus on their mutual scholarly interests highlighted by the pandemic, such as suburban planning, ecology, and ethics in the Anthropocene, and talk to interesting faculty guests from Harvard, MIT, and elsewhere about the guest’s work on that topic.

Figures mentioned in our conversation:

• Raimund Abraham (architect)
• Lebbeus Woods (architect)
• Paolo Soleri (architect)
• Peter Gallison, “War Against the Center,” Grey Room No. 4 (Summer, 2001): 5-33.
• David Monteyne, Fallout Shelter: Designing for Civil Defense in the Cold War (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011).
• Nicholas Meyer, dir., “The Day After,” ABC Circle Films, 126 min., 1983.

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For the first episode of Dangerous History on WAWD? Radio I interviewed Nushelle de Silva, who has her own internet broadcast show, Museum Missives, 5pm on Thursdays. (Listen to our interview here.) My discussion with Nushelle focuses on self-discovery. How does our work connect to the world around us? Does it reflect our inner goals, hopes, and fears? As we work through the marathon of the PhD process together, Nushelle reminds us to aim high, raise our spirits, and reinsert our humanity into our professional lives.

Nushelle da Silva is a PhD student in History, Theory, and Criticism of Art and Architecture at MIT. She received a Master of Science in Architecture Studies (SMArchS) from MIT in 2015, and a BA in Architecture from Princeton University in 2011. Her research is broadly concerned with the politics of display; her past work has examined Cold War exhibitions, contentious museum collections, and the fate of monuments in times of crisis.

This conversation aired on April 1, 2020, from inside my closet. As my first attempt at a live internet radio show, routed through both Zoom and Mixlr, it went well in the sense that it aired, but there is reverb in the audio. Nushelle has a beautiful voice that shines through nevertheless. You can find out more about Nushelle at Nushelle.com.