Nordiska Kompaniet
AB Nordiska Kompaniet , or NK for short , is a department store chain in Sweden with branches in Stockholm and Gothenburg .
The house in Stockholm
The Stockholm department store on Hamngatan opened in September 1915. The house's architect , Ferdinand Boberg , was inspired by study trips to the USA and Europe , with Harrods in London (1894-1903), Galeries Lafayette (1893) in Paris and KaDeWe (1905) in Berlin as his Served as a model. The design language shows clear influences of German Art Nouveau . The floors are arranged as in its European models to a glass-covered courtyard, which still have interiors with marble and brass received. Sweden's first mechanical escalator was also installed here. NK was supposed to be and was the modern high-end department store.
History and organization
The company AB Nordiska Kompaniet was founded in 1902 by a merger of the retail company of K. M. Lundberg and Joseph Leja. The founder was Josef Sachs (1872–1949), who had followed his father Simon Sachs as head of the Joseph Leya company in 1893 and was also general manager of the Stockholm House from 1915–1937 (his portrait bust is on the ground floor). Benjamin Leja, Simon Sachs' maternal grandfather, came to Sweden as a German-Jewish immigrant.
NK's well-known logo was designed by David Blomberg in 1902 and has not changed since then. During various expansionary periods, branches were opened in u. a. 1908 in Saint Petersburg , 1913 in Moscow and 1920 in Buenos Aires . New branches also opened in Sweden: in 1960 in Farsta , 1963 in Malmö , 1971 in Gothenburg and 1974 in Täby . But as in Germany, the large department stores in Sweden also got economic difficulties. In 1976 the company merged with its closest competitor Åhlén & Holm , and later it became a subsidiary of the construction company NCC AB . As a result, all department stores, with the exception of the main store in Stockholm and the branch in Gothenburg, were closed. In 1991, NK finally became a pure real estate company which rents premises to various independent trading companies under the NK logo ( franchising ).
The house in Stockholm has around twelve million visitors a year, the one in Gothenburg around three million. Both houses together have around 1200 employees. An annual highlight are NK's Christmas shop window decorations in Stockholm.
On September 10, 2003, the then Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was assassinated in the NK Stockholm and died the following day.
NK art and design
From the early 1930s to around 1970, NK was very important to the Swedish art industry and to Swedish designers. The careers of some young talents began at NK- Bo (living) under Lena Larsson . B. Stig Lindberg , Yngve Ekström and Bertil Vallien . Astrid Sampe created numerous legendary fabric samples for NK- Textilkammare (textiles department) .