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 vans that were used to collect and deliver the customers' furniture came to be known as "Pantechnicon vans." From around 1900, the name was shortened to simply Pantechnicon. The Pantechnicon Ltd, a furniture storage and removal company, continued to trade until the 1970s. The building was largely destroyed by fire in 1874, but the facade still exists and the usefulness of the vans was by then well established and they had been adopted by other firms. As of 2015 the façade and the building behind it has been leased by its owner, Grosvenor Estates, to Cubitt House, a company specializing