London Zoo 2002 - Front of the Tecton Gorilla House

Scanned photo from my visit in January 2002.

Front of the Tecton Gorilla House. It has housed a remarkable number of different animals since 1932, starting with gorillas and later an Elephant, Kodiak Bears, Chimpanzees and Koalas. When I was there in 2001 it was and maybe still is Aye Aye exhibit.

This is now the ring tailed lemur exhibit.
So did this contain gorillas when you visited? if so gorilla kingdom is a big improvement and it cannot be denied.

The Sobells are on the same site as Gorilla Kingdom, and are in fact mostly still there - the exhibits currently used for most of the monkeys, plus the gibbons, are just the Sobell exhibits, very little altered in most cases.

I used the classic book "The Buildings of London Zoo" when I was naming these photos. I stated it clearly that it held Aye Ayes at the time of my visit and that gorillas were the very first inhabitants decades ago.

Thanks for this information-and Maguaris. I think the aye-ayes are still in there with the lemurs using this outdoor area.

London Zoo 2002 -- Front of the Tecton Gorilla House

This house was custom built for gorillas between the wars, in the days when gorillas were regarded as 'difficult' if not impossible. I believe the only gorillas ever to inhabit it were Mok and Moina, who lived only a few years. An innovation in this building was a sliding screen that could turn the open part into an indoor hall; don't know if this still works. At one time the Zoo's breeding chimp colony was housed here, and I think I remember Orangs later on, but this may be a false memory. Before the Aye-ayes it held Koalas, which were about as boring as the Aye-ayes are exciting. Sorry, personal preferences showing here.....

Regarding Koalas: no worries! There was a time when they excited me, but after working for seven months in Australia and visiting over 20 zoos and wildlife park there, I'm afraid that excitement has vanished for me too.

Just in case anyone's wondering - when willtheman45 edited his post he took out the question I was answering here!

No it is NOT a false memory, this building was definitely used for orang-utans too. (I can remember Kodiak bears in here when I was a very small child.)

London Zoo 2002 -- Front of the Tecton Gorilla House

Tim May -- would these Kodiaks have had anything to do with the breeding pair they had at Whipsnade? I never remember seeing Kodiaks on the Mappins. They must have looked very big and out of place in this building. Mind you, so would an Elephant; how did they get it through the door? Maybe it was a small one....