PhD Proseminar: Nuclear Architectures

From secret laboratories to monumental infrastructures and the many landscapes of war, energy, and waste in between, nuclear power is at the core of a vast and radically understudied array of 20th c. architectures. Central to the most iconic architectural images of the post-war era while also rendered invisible in apparently unseen wastelands, atomic weapons, nuclear reactors, and atmospheric fallout eventually attracted intense architectural attention. Drawing on multiple literatures, the seminar explores how the nuclear penetrated beyond warscapes to enter even the private spaces of the domestic realm and the human body.