Nordiska Kompaniet (colloquially NK, and literally ''The Nordic Company'') is the name of two
department store
A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...
s located in
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
and
Gothenburg
Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...
, in Sweden.
The store in Stockholm receives some twelve million visitors annually, with the figure for the store in Gothenburg being about three million and the total number of staff around 1,200. The trademark and the real estate properties in Gothenburg and Stockholm are owned by
Hufvudstaden AB, controlled by L E Lundbergföretagen publ (see
Fredrik Lundberg
Fredrik Lundberg (born 5 August 1951) is a Swedish businessman.
His father was Lars Erik Lundberg (1920-2001) founder of L E Lundbergföretagen. Fredrik Lundberg is president and CEO of L E Lundbergföretagen, of which he inherited a controlli ...
).
Nordiska Kompaniet was a founder and remained member of the
International Association of department stores
The International Association of Department Stores (IADS) is a retail trade association founded in 1928 by a group of department stores with the goal of introducing modern management methods derived from the scientific management movement to their ...
from 1928 to 1991.
History
The company was founded in Stockholm 1902 through the merger of the two companies K.M. Lundberg and Joseph Leja. The men responsible for the merger were
Karl Ludvig Lundberg and
Josef Sachs (1872–1949), who wanted to establish a department store that would offer the same level of service as the stores in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
or
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
.
On September 21, 1915 the building designed and built especially for the department store was inaugurated on
Hamngatan
Hamngatan (Swedish: ''Port Street'') is a street in central Stockholm. It goes from Sergels torg down to Nybroplan, past NK department store, Kungsträdgården, Norrmalmstorg, and Berzelii Park. The Djurgården line travels along this street bet ...
, over the street from the
Kungsträdgården
Kungsträdgården ( Swedish for "King's Garden") is a park in central Stockholm, Sweden. It is colloquially known as ''Kungsan''.
The park's central location and its outdoor cafés makes it one of the most popular hangouts and meeting place ...
park in Stockholm.
Ferdinand Boberg
Gustaf Ferdinand Boberg (11 April 1860 – 7 May 1946) was a Swedish architect.
Biography
Boberg was born in Falun. He became one of the most productive and prominent architects of Stockholm around the turn of the 20th century. Among his most ...
, Sweden's leading
Art Nouveau architect, designed the building. He was influenced by American department stores, giving the structure an
internal load-bearing steel structure and an external facade of
granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...
.
Ivar Kreuger
Ivar Kreuger (; 2 March 1880 – 12 March 1932) was a Swedish civil engineer, financier, entrepreneur and industrialist. In 1908, he co-founded the construction company Kreuger & Toll Byggnads AB, which specialized in new building techniques. B ...
's company
Kreuger & Toll
Kreuger & Toll was a company founded on May 18, 1908 by two Swedish engineers, Ivar Kreuger and Paul Toll, with Henrik Kreüger working as a consultant and chief engineer.
History
Early 1908, Ivar and his cousin Henrik Kreüger planned to estab ...
was responsible for the actual construction of the building.
About 1939 NK installed a circular neon sign with a diameter of 7 meters on the
Old Stockholm telephone tower
The Old Stockholm telephone tower (Swedish: ''Telefontornet'') was a metallic structure built to connect approximately 5,500 telephone lines in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. Constructed in 1887, the tower was used until 1913. It was damage ...
. The telephone wires were replaced by underground cabling in the early 20th century and the tower had since been rented by the telephone company for commercial purposes. The sign was constructed by
L M Ericsson
(lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informa ...
. One side of the sign features the NK logo in green, the other side a clock in red. It weighs four
tons and revolves at four
rpm
Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines.
Standards
ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...
. In 1952, the building under the tower was fire-ravaged and the steel tower severely damaged. The neon sign was however not affected by the fire and since 1964 it sits on a custom-designed tower on the NK building's roof, 87 meters above street level.
The building was extended in 1961–63 by architect
Hans Asplund
Hans Asplund (16 August 1921 – 8 January 1994) was a Swedish architect. His work was part of the architecture event in the art competition at the 1948 Summer Olympics
The 1948 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XIV Olympi ...
along the facade on Regeringsgatan. The extension stands on the former lot of Stockholm's old electric power plant, which remarkably was the first major work by NK's original architect Boberg. In 1971–73 a smaller addition was made by architect
Bengt Lindroos
Bengt Ingmar Lindroos (22 September 1918 – 22 August 2010) was a Swedish architect.
Lindroos started drafting houses for a local builder at the age of 17 years and received his formal education at the Royal Institute of Technology from 1942- ...
when part of the street Smålandsgatan was closed and converted into a building lot. Nordiska Kompaniet (NK) is also the name of the well known design company which produced many popular design commodities in the 20th century.
Acquisition
On March 25, 2009, it was made public that the
department store
A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...
corporation
Åhléns
Åhléns () is a chain of Swedish department stores. With locations in almost every city in the country, including 18 in Stockholm alone , it is the fourth largest group of fashion stores in Sweden.
History
Åhléns began as a mail order bu ...
, Sweden's leading department store chain, would acquire some stores in NK if the deal is approved by the relevant government agency. The price is said to be 440 million
Swedish kronor and include 430 employees.
" RNB säljer NK-butiker (Swedish) "
/ref>
File:Stockholm - NK.jpg, NK during the 2011–2012 Christmas and holiday season
The Christmas season or the festive season (also known in some countries as the holiday season or the holidays) is an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and other countries that is generally considered to run from late Novemb ...
File:StockholmNKDepartmentStore.jpg
File:Nordiska Kompaniet, Stockholm, 2019 (02).jpg
References
External links
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{{coord, 59.33304, N, 18.07079, E, source:placeopedia, display=title
Department stores of Sweden
Buildings and structures in Stockholm
Economy of Stockholm
Buildings and structures in Gothenburg
Art Nouveau architecture in Stockholm
Art Nouveau retail buildings
Commercial buildings completed in 1915
Purveyors to the Court of Sweden