SONCITIES researcher Dr Christabel Stirling visits the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) to give a guest lecture on ‘Hearing the City’ to students studying on the MA Situated Practice. The lecture forms part of the module ‘Mediated Environments’ co-ordinated by Henrietta Williams and Dr Merijn Royaards, where students critically explore architectural and spatial themes through the medium of the film-essay. In the lecture, we think critically about sound and music in urban culture and socio-spatial experience, considering the ways in which urban sound is entwined with power, identity, belonging, and exclusion, in part due to its powerful ‘spatializing’ capacities. We then explore different sound-based methods and discuss the kinds of knowledge and understanding that sonic methods such as listening, sound walking, field recording, and audio journaling can impart. Drawing on the work of sonic anthropologists, urban sociologists, ethnographers, and artists, we ask: What can sound disclose about the complexities of contemporary city life? How does sonic knowledge disrupt, amplify, or otherwise supplement written or visual documentation? And what ethical and practical issues arise in adopting sound as both a research method and a medium of communication? The lecture includes a discussion of the ‘audio diaries’ that participants have been making as part of the ongoing SONCITIES fieldwork. It is followed by Crits and tutorials with the students discussing their current work.