Nordiska Kompaniet 4.86

Nordiska Kompaniet is the name of two department stores located in Stockholm and Gothenburg, 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 .Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Anna Lindh was stabbed in the NK Stockholm store on September 10, 2003. She died the next day after undergoing various unsuccessful operations.HistoryThe 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 or London.On September 21, 1915 the building designed and built especially for the department store was inaugurated on Hamngatan, over the street from the Kungsträdgården park in Stockholm. Ferdinand Boberg, 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. Ivar Kreuger's company Kreuger & Toll was responsible for the actual construction of the building.