Jernkontoret
The Jernkontoret ("Iron Office") is the interest group of the Swedish steel industry . It deals with questions of steel trading, research and training, standard setting, environmental and tax matters, the statistics for the iron and steel industry and exploring the history of the Swedish iron ore - mining . Jernkontoret has public law status. However, it is not an employers' association , because the Jernkontoret does not cooperate with private companies as a whole, but through partnerships with the individual steelworks. Stål och Metall Arbetsgivareförbundet plays the role of the industry's employers' association .
history
Iron ore mining and the steel industry - with mining areas such as Bergslagen (the most important mining area in the country from the Middle Ages to the 19th century) Malmberget and Kiruna as well as companies such as Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB (LKAB), Boliden AB , Svenskt Stål AB (SSAB) and Sandvik AB - has a long tradition in Sweden and is of great importance for the country's economic wealth today.
The Jernkontoret was originally founded by the Bruks-Societät , an association of some owners of Swedish ironworks (the large so-called Bruks-Patrone and the small Bergslager ), which was created at the initiative of the government, as a support organization for its members in economic difficulties. Gradually, all of the Swedish iron and steel companies became members. In essence, the establishment of the Jernkontoret as a self-help organization of the economy goes back to the pioneering ideas in Sweden of Anders Nordencrantz (1697–1772), author of economic libertarian and extremely critical economic and political writings towards the state administration. The term “iron office” was coined by the Swedish printer and publicist Lars Salvius (1706–1773); Previously, terms such as "iron association" or "iron company" were in use, but because of their intellectual proximity to the term monopoly, they had a negative connotation in public.
The first regulations of the Jernkontoret were approved by a letter of foundation from the year 1747 by the German-born King Frederick I , so that this year is to be regarded as the foundation date and thus the Jernkontoret is the oldest Swedish economic organization and one of the oldest in Europe (the Bergskollegium , the state Swedish control authority for mining and metallurgy, has existed since 1630; however, the Swedish state has not operated its own mining since the reign of Queen Christine in the mid-17th century).
Among other things, the Jernkontoret provided technical management consultants, made advances, regulated prices and promoted research and teaching in the field of iron production. In the 1760s, Jernkontoret received the right to lend money (which is no longer exercised today), so that Jernkontoret is formally the second oldest financial institution in the country after the Swedish Reichsbank . Jernkontoret sent representatives to the countries of Europe in order to observe the markets for the iron trade and to be able to react early to technical innovations. The surviving minutes of these Jernkontoret representatives (for example the travel diary of Reinhold Rücker Angerstein , who also worked for the Bergskollegium) are today an important source of European industrial history.
building
Until 1875 the Jernkontoret was located in a house on Stora Nygatan in the old town ( Gamla stan ) of Stockholm. It then moved to a building designed by architect Axel Kumlien in the French Renaissance style in central Stockholm ( Norrmalm district ) at 6 Kungsträdgårdsgatan (Königsgartenstrasse). The medallions attached to the facade show reliefs created by the sculptor Johan Frithiof Kjellberg of important Swedish scientists and industrialists from the fields of mineralogy and chemistry, mining and the coal and steel industry, such as Jöns Jacob Berzelius , Johan Gottschalk Wallerius , Nils Gabriel Sefström , Torbern Olof Bergman , Christopher Polhem , Carl Wilhelm Scheele , Louis de Geer , Erik Nordewall , Axel Fredrik Cronstedt , Sven Rinman , Emanuel Swedenborg , Johan Gottlieb Gahn , Daniel Tilas , Anton von Swab . A frieze below the eaves describes the history of Swedish metalworking from ancient times to the mid-19th century. The main entrance on the corner of Kungsträdgårdsgatan and Arsenalsgatan is adorned with elaborately designed cast-iron sconces, held by legendary miners in typical hooded costume.
Between 1962 and 1967, the headquarters of Stockholms Enskilda Bank (today Skandinaviska Enskilda Banks ) was built on the Jernkontoret property . Nothing is left of the interior of the old Jernkontoret building after the renovation. Today the Jernkontoret is located at Kungsträdgårdsgatan 10.
literature
- Bertil Boëthius : Jernkontorets historia . Stockholm: Jernkontoret, 1947–1968 (Festschrift published in several part deliveries)
- Jernkontoret (Ed.): Jernkontoret 1747 - 1997: 250 Years in Serving the Swedish Iron and Steel Industry . Stockholm: Jernkontoret, 1997
See also
- Stahl-Zentrum and Bundesverband Deutscher Stahlhandel ( German Steel Trade Association) , together roughly the German counterpart to Jernkontoret
Web links
- Official website (Swedish and English)