Here’s something from the mid 90s which was way, way ahead of its time. A video essayist from long before video essayists were a thing, this man miraculously managed to get this stuff broadcast on national TV to an audience of, if not millions, then at least many many thousands of unsuspecting people, my young self included. I present a true hero of mine, Jonathan Meades.
Most of his work is ostensibly about buildings, food or a combination of both. This particular essay is about “psychotropic buildings, intoxicating structures and the pursuit of vertigo”. But you can’t really talk about those things without also talking about art, social policy, drugs, engineering and any number of other subjects. And he presents it with a combination of learned, assured wordiness and a lot of proudly stupid jokes which reminds me of a certain other, insert credit-associated video essayist I could mention.
All his stuff is great, but in addition to this I’d particularly recommend his much later work Magnetic North, which follows the Baltic coast and explores the overlooked architectural and artistic treasures of the dark Northern edge of Europe. Pretty much everything of his is on YouTube.
Not really about games but…well if it’s about architecture then it is, by extension, about level design so that’s my excuse.