Schunck

Schunck was the name of a founded by Arnold Schunck in 1874 textile business in Heerlen in the Netherlands. The company operated several stores, including department stores in Heerlen and Geleen over time. Arnold Schunck son Peter was in the 1930s the Glaspaleis ( Glass Palace ) built, which won several architectural awards and today is the cultural center of the city. The company Schunck, which was performed later in the legal form of a limited company remained until its sale to the company Berden in 1995 largely owned by the family of Arnold Schunck and his descendants.

History

Arnold Schunck ( born February 11, 1842 in Kettenis ( Eupen ), † 15 October 1905 in Heerlen ), himself comes from a small weaving, learned the craft of weaving in Aachen and worked in the Eupener dyeing Fremerey. In order to make the necessary for his master's examination experience, his years of travel have taken him to Poland and Russia. In an abandoned copper mill in Hauset he founded a first weaving, but was not profitable, because you could not produce the favorable conditions as emerging industrial establishments in neighboring Aachen and Eupen. Therefore Schunck in Heerlen in 1874 founded a small hand weaving, after a few years to become a textile business with affiliated drugstore ( sale of so-called " Kneipp Products") enlarged.

The business was operated primarily by his wife Anna Maria Küppers ( born January 20, 1843 in Aachen, † November 20, 1930 ). Target audience was primarily in the context of industrialization and emerging coal mining in the region attracting miners, which he could very stable fabrics for work clothes and later readymade garments sell first, what was unusual at that time. The success was also due to the central location; Heerlen had at that time, although only about 5,000 residents, but a large, initially through agriculture and then more and more marked by one small industry surrounding areas.

Peter Schunck ( born October 31, 1873 in Hauset, † 13 July 1960 in Heerlen ), which took over responsibility in the company after the death of his father beside his mother, procured about the year 1908 three buses, which according to a fixed schedule multiple times daily the surrounding villages whose inhabitants were headed and free brought to the department store in Heerlen. So he ran practically the first public transport company in Heerlen.

In the late 1920s, the business was good; Peter Schunck acquired a number of terraces around the department store around land and could use it for the expansion of the business. On a part of this area Peter Schunck was by the architect Frits Peutz Heerlen the Glass Palace in the Bauhaus style building, which opened in 1935, well over Heerlen also attracted considerable attention. The 27 m high building was considered as high-rise building, from the top floor was seen from the 20 km to Aachen.

Their bloom reached the company in the early 1960s when several department stores in the Netherlands more than 1,000 people were employed, but with the decline of coal mining in the late 1960s changed quickly. This fell out of a particularly affluent part of the customer base of the company. Worst was the effect of the introduction of a VAT in the Netherlands and the planned reduction of store opening times on Saturdays. Both made ​​the department store for a large part of coming from beyond the nearby German border customers increasingly unattractive. In order to defuse the tense situation financially, some shops were submitted to the competition as well as to specialized companies, the glass palace as a hallmark of the company was also sold. However, the search for solutions to the financial problems did not lead to the parties satisfying result.

Christine Schunck (* 1907 ), daughter of Peter Schunck. Under her leadership, the company has been reduced to the original division of textiles and interior decoration. At the age of 65 years she bought back the outstanding shares of its own assets and changed the company in July 1972 as a private limited company has to offer. The banks made loans for the circulation of goods available. By the mid- 1980s turned to the company's succession issue again. After none of the offspring would lead the company itself, it was sold to the company Berden. This operation is eleven years under the name Berden - Schunck, but since 2006 no longer part of the company name (company) name Schunck.