Pantechnicon van Pantechnicon van A Pantechnicon van, currently usually shortened to pantec, was originally a furniture removal van drawn by horses and used by the British company "The Pantechnicon" for delivering and collecting furniture which its customers wished to store. The name is a word largely of British English usage. The word "Pantechnicon" is an invented one, formed from the Greek "pan" ("all") and "techne" ("art"). It was originally the name of a large establishment in Motcomb Street, Belgravia, London, opened around 1830. It combined a picture gallery, a furniture shop, and the sale of carriages, while its southern half was a
Pantechnicon van sizable warehouse for storing furniture and other items. Seth Smith (property developer), whose family were originally from Wiltshire, was a builder in the early 19th century, and constructed much of the new housing in Belgravia, then a country area. Their clients required storage facilities and this was built on an awkward left-over triangular site with a Greek style Doric column façade, and called Pantechnicon, pseudo-Greek for "pertaining to all the arts or crafts". Subsequently, special wagons were designed with sloping ramps to more easily load furniture, with the building name on the side. The very large, distinctive, and noticeable horse-drawn