This thesis examines the role of female voices in contemporary urban public spaces, transmitted through hidden loudspeakers. Unlike overt surveillance, these announcements remain unquestioned yet significantly shape public environments. Through historical analysis, focusing on key moments in the development of public address systems, I explore their impact on urban governance and societal structures. Drawing on sonic methodologies and interdisciplinary perspectives from architectural history, feminist theory, sound studies, and philosophy, I investigate the power dynamics embedded in urban soundscapes. By deconstructing the evolution of PA systems and their influence on notions of biopolitics, governmentality, fear, desire, and gender, this research offers a critical understanding of how these architectures of the voice construct the urban experience.

Located at the centre of Swindon, the Swindon Railway Village (SRV) was a residential and social hub for Swindon and its Great Western Railway (GWR) locomotive and carriage works. The SRV was established in 1841 to the designs of the famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel and expanded throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century to serve the GWR’s needs. By 1891, it comprised of around 287 cottages, a large mechanics’ institute, a market, a cottage hospital, an expansive company park, an Anglican church, a Methodist chapel, swimming baths and a medical dispensary. The SRV was a complex multi-functional space that could support a railway worker from cradle to grave. This report aims to reinvigorate an understudied area and to answer the central research question— what were the architectural and ideological functions of the SRV?