EVENT: VIDEOGAMES AS ARCHITECTURAL ARCHIVES: TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE AND BEYOND (APRIL 16 2026, ONLINE)
On Thursday 16 April 2026, from 6:30 to 7:45 pm GMT, the Twentieth Century Society will host the online event Videogames as Architectural Archives: Twentieth-Century Architecture and Beyond. Framed around the relation between game design, architectural history, and cultural preservation, this online event considers how videogame environments might function as records of the built world and as resources for the interpretation of historical space.
The panel brings together curatorial, architectural, and museum-based perspectives.
Marie Foulston is Studio Lead at Good Afternoon and former Curator of Videogames at the V&A, where she co-curated Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt; she also served as Guest Director of Now Play This in 2020.
Luke Caspar Pearson is Associate Professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, co-founder of You+Pea, and co-Director of the Cinematic and Videogame Architecture MArch.
Natalie D. Kane is Curator of Digital Design at the V&A and curator of Design and Disability. Hiba Alobaydi is a trustee of the Twentieth Century Society and a historian, researcher, and curator specialising in architecture and design.
At issue is the archival status of the videogame environment: whether simulated buildings, streets, and urban systems can be understood not merely as backdrops for play, but as forms of spatial evidence, reconstruction, and historical imagination. The premise is especially relevant at a moment when museums, design researchers, and heritage organisations are paying closer attention to born-digital objects and to the preservation problems they pose.
The event is organised by the Twentieth Century Society, an IHBC-recognised CPD provider and registered charity. Tickets are £5 for C20 Society members, £10 for non-members, £5 for students, and free for Young C20 members. Booking details are available via the Twentieth Century Society event page: click the button below to register.