Elihu Rubin, an urban studies scholar who has driven innovation in the teaching, study, and development of solutions that benefit cities worldwide, was recently appointed the Henry Hart Rice Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban studies, effective July 1.
He is a faculty member at Yale School of Architecture and has a secondary appointment in the American Studies program in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
As a scholar, Rubin has focused on the built environments of American cities and the dynamics of urban change. His book “Insuring the City: The Prudential Center and the Postwar Urban Landscape” (Yale University Press, 2012) received Best Book awards from the Urban History Association and the Society for American City and Regional Planning History (SACRPH).
Rubin’s research on the history and theory of urban planning, historic preservation, collective memory practices, and critical heritage are topics in his current book project, “Ghost Town: The Urban History of an American Icon.” In Fall 2024, Rubin is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship.
Rubin teaches both graduate and undergraduate students, including the required Core IV Urban Design studio for M.Arch I students in the Yale School of Architecture and a large lecture class on American Architecture and Urbanism for Yale College.
He has engaged in teaching collaborations like Design Brigade in which students address a design problem for a local organization. Rubin has served as mentor to graduate and undergraduate students in a range of academic programs, and he has helped lead the Urban Studies major as its Director of Undergraduate Studies. He received the King Lui Wu Teaching Award from the Yale School of Architecture in 2020.
In his seminars and lecture courses, Rubin has made community-based teaching a hallmark of his efforts as an educator. Students are introduced to people and places in New Haven and create research-based assignments in collaboration with local organizations that are shared-back in public settings like the New Haven Free Public Library.
His ongoing digital humanities project, the New Haven Building Archive, collects hundreds of examples of student research about local buildings and invites the public to contribute their own memories and impressions.
Rubin’s research initiative, the Yale Urban Media Project amplifies these efforts at community-engaged research and public scholarship. They have included Interactive Crown Street, New Haven Industrial Heritage Trails, the publication of the New Haven Building Newsprint, and a sustained engagement with local efforts to resuscitate the Goffe Street Armory.
Rubin is faculty director of Advocacy and Planning at the Yale Urban Design Workshop, where he has been actively engaged with neighborhood planning efforts with the Greater Dwight Development Corporation.
He earned a Master of City Planning degree and a Ph.D. in the History of Architecture and Urbanism from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in Ethics, Politics, and Economics from Yale.
