Nordiska Kompaniet

Nordiska Kompaniet, colloquially NK, and literally The Nordic Company is the name of two department stores located in Stockholm and Gothenburg, in Sweden. The company was started in Stockholm 1902 by Josef Sachs (1872–1949) who wanted to establish a department store that would offer the same level of service as the stores in Paris or London.

On September 21, 1915 the house designed and built especially for the department store was inagurated on Hamngatan, over the street from the Kungsträdgården park in Stockholm. Ferdinand Boberg, Sweden's leading Art Noveau architect, designed the building under influence of American department stores, with an internal load-bearing steel structure and an external facade of granite. Responsible for the construction of the house was Ivar Kreuger's company Kreuger & Toll.

In 1954 a circular neon disc with a diameter of 7 meters was installed. One side features the label ("NK") in green, the other side a clock in red. It weighs four tons, sits 87 meters above street level and revolves at four rpm.

Today the store in Stockholm has some twelve million visitors anually, the figure for the store in Gothenburg is about three million and the total staff numbers about 1,200. The trademark and the real estate properties in Gothenburg and Stockholm are owned by Hufvudstaden AB.

Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Anna Lindh was assassinated in the NK department store in september 2003.

External links

• Nordiska Kompaniet, official website