3D visualisation is a powerful technique to increase understanding and experience of non-extant cultural heritage. This paper will present the aggregation, interpretation, visualisation, and presentation of evidence related to the British Empire Exhibition of 1938, an internationally significant event for the study of modernist architecture as well as British social and industrial history. Although the documentation aggregated is unusually rich and varied as it includes photographic and film evidence, floorplans, souvenirs, and living witness testimonies, it is nevertheless surprisingly scarce and incomplete just 70 years later. Good practice in creating 3D digital reconstructions (which are absolutist in nature) needs researchers to meticulously document their processes to alleviate the danger of mis-reading visualised data based on incomplete sources.

Using visualisation theory alongside elements of dramaturgical theory appropriate to the deliberately temporary nature of this exhibition, this paper will examine the points of creative interpretation inherent in the event documentation, the surviving evidence, the research and 3D visualisation process, and its presentation to different audiences. An application was developed to link research sources and documentation of interpretative process directly to an interactive 3D visualisation of the Exhibition; one solution to the challenge of making interpretative influence and uncertainty transparent.