Tecton was a radical London architecture group founded in 1932 by Berthold Lubetkin with Francis Skinner, Denys Lasdun, Anthony Chitty, Lindsay Drake and others, and one of the leaders in bringing continental modernism to Britain. Its name is short for the Greek architekton, "master builder". The group worked closely with the engineer Ove Arup, whose concrete construction made its daring forms possible, and its later housing for the Borough of Finsbury became a model for Britain's post-war welfare state. Sources differ on its end: Tecton's article says it disbanded in 1939, Lubetkin's that it was dissolved in 1948.
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After the Gorilla House, the group built the Penguin Pool, London Zoo (1934), whose interlocking spiral ramps cross an elliptical pool seemingly without support; it is listed Grade I. Success at London Zoo led to Dudley Zoo (1937), twelve playful modernist enclosures. Highpoint I in Highgate (1935), an apartment block, set a new standard for city living and was praised by Le Corbusier. The Finsbury Health Centre (1938), the first public commission given to a modernist group in Britain, offered free health care a decade before the National Health Service.
