As a corollary to the work of Edward Tregear in pioneering the role of the public sector in setting the standard for and creating the conditions for decent housing for all New Zealanders, the social entrepreneurship of both James Fletcher and Ernst Plischke needs to be recognised. It was the business and organisation acumen of Fletcher which made the state housing schemes of Lee and Tyndall a reality in the thirties. Plischke, an architect associated with the Bauhaus and a refugee from the Nazi regime, and in association with a likeminded group, injected modernist concepts into the planning and construction of housing in this country from the forties until his return to his native Vienna and a prestigious academic post in the sixties.