ABSTRACT
This short chapter is concerned with the building of the new centre. In describing the development of its design towards an open floor plan between 1931 to 1935, it challenges the aforementioned notion that the centre was a purpose-built social laboratory. Instead, the chapter demonstrates that engineer William Owen was chosen because of the low costs of his stripped-down, modernist design rather than on the grounds of the scientific merits of his proposals. The chapter also deals with the opening of the centre and the success stories that the directors were soon after publishing in their first annual reports.
