Łódź, a UNESCO Creative City in Poland

Red-brick factory buildings tower above the roads leading into the Polish city of Łódź (Łódź). Huge workers’ tenement houses line the streets. An early introduction to the history of a town where 600 spinning mills operated at the beginning of the twentieth century. No wonder renowned local poet Julian Tuwim called it the chimney town. And it remains so despite the almost total collapse of the textile spinning and weaving industry towards the end of the twentieth century. But an extensive programme of renovation and revival means the city is shedding its industrial image and acquiring a reputation for art in its many forms. Industrial structures that have been revitalized are now used for different purposes including hotels, residential lofts, offices, shops and spaces for events and festivals. In 2015 Industrial Łódź was listed as an Historical Monument by the Polish President. A year later Łódź was added to the UNESCO network of Creative Cities when it was designated a UNESCO City of Film. The textile magnates have certainly left their mark on Łódź. Poznański Palace is an excellent example of the grandeur of that era.

Poznański Palace in Łódź

Today the palatial state rooms of the Poznański Palace are open to the public and visitors can see for themselves the grandeur of those prosperous days of the textile industry in Łódź. Izrael Poznański was the second wealthiest cotton king during that period. He owned his own brick company and all the bricks used to build the illustrious residence are inscribed with his initials IP. The architecture is a mixture of styles as he could afford to extend the building in any style he liked. On the other side of the state rooms, which the family would use for formal occasions, are the smaller, cosier rooms they lived in. The bedroom that belonged to the mistress of the house as a large wardrobe with a door on the bedroom side and one opening on to the maid’s room next door. The maid could collect the clothes from the wardrobe to wash and iron them without having to enter her mistress’s bedroom. Below the state rooms is the Museum of Łódź. A combination of exhibits and inter-active displays that tell the history of the city. Next to the palace is the relatively small Textile Museum.

The Textile Museum in Łódź

The Textile Museum is in the centre of Manufaktura which has been created from a former industrial complex of spinning mills and workers’ housing. Now it is a cultural, retail and entertainment centre. The main building houses a shopping mall and the Textile Museum is on the second floor. Guided tours are available in this museum. Visitors can see an original Poznański weaving machine in action and hear stories of some ruthless practices employed by the owner taking advantage of his illiterate workforce. It is said he put the factory clocks back fifteen minutes so the first few thousand metres of cloth woven in those fifteen minutes was essentially ‘free’. The textile industry came to Łódź for three reasons; its many rivers, a good source of clay to build bricks for the red-brick factories and surrounding providing wood to burn. But since World War II has been a leader in another industry, the film industry, as documented by the Film Museum.

The Film Museum in Łódź

Housed in the nineteenth century villa of the wealthiest cotton king, Karl Scheibler, the Film Museum illustrates the important contribution Poland (and Łódź) have made to world cinema. Some of the exhibits which range from film technology, costumes, memorabilia and famous Polish directors, actors and locations are displayed in the original rooms of the palace. Rooms that have also served as film sets. Łódź became the centre of the Polish film industry following the destruction of Krakow during the Second War as the town had suffered very little damage. Exhibits and information boards relate the popularity of picture houses which provided entertainment for a large, illiterate workforce to its use as a film location. It covers the history of technological developments. Visitors can watch a daily showing of slides in the circular vintage kaiserpanorama. Originally, the villa was surrounded by a large park which was closed to the public when Scheibler bought the land to build his villa. Today it only has a garden where there is a café. The park, Park Zrodliska, is once again open to the public, and provides a pleasant walk to Księży Młyn, a factory and residential complex also built by Karl Scheibler.

Księży Młyn in Łódź

Księży Młyn or Priest’s Mill is an historic industrial estate created in the nineteenth century by Karol Scheibler (1820–1881) the richest of the cotton kings. Built on the site of an old mill, this self-sufficient town within the city was modelled on English industrial settlements. At its height the Scheibler empire occupied a sixth of the total area of the city of Łódź. The whole area was fenced and closed for the night. The factory buildings at Księży Młyn included a huge turreted cotton mill, warehouses, workers’ houses, a school, a fire station, two hospitals, gasworks, a factory club, shops and some houses for the owners. There was also a railway siding here as Scheibler built a private railway. Scheibler would partially pay the workers’ wages in vouchers valid only in his shops. This worked for the wives as it meant their husbands did not have cash to waste on beer. But as factories slid into bankruptcy all the workers had were worthless vouchers.

The collapse of the textile industry meant a change of function for this settlement. In 1971 it was recognised as an industrial architecture monument and a tourist attraction as well as a venue for cultural events. This district has been modernised and former factory workers’ houses have been converted into blocks of flats that include social housing. The Cat Trail goes through this area. There is also a small, informal museum in an old worker’s flat. All the items in this museum have been donated by local people who motivated the establishment of this fascinating glimpse into the area’s industrial past. Nearby the Herbst Palace Museum reflects the life-style of an industrial magnate of the same period.

Herbst Palace Museum in Łódź

Herbst Palace Museum occupies the neo-renaissance mansion built by Scheibler for his daughter, Matylda, but it is named after his son-in-law, Edward Herbst. Scheibler was not a well man and concerned that he would die before his teenage sons attained an age when they could inherit his estate, he engineered a marriage between his daughter and the factory manager Edward Herbst. When Scheibler died Herbst became the director of Scheibler’s textile factory and he and his wife Matylda lived in this mansion. When the palace was renovated in 2011 to 2013 it was restored to its former glory as a factory owners’ house during the time when Matylda and Edward Herbst lived there. But very few of the furnishings are the originals as the granddaughter (a Jewish Ukrainian) shipped everything to Vienna just before the Nazi occupation. The former stables and coach house have been adapted to store and display works of art as the palace is now part of the Museum of Art in Łódź. Scheibler may have been the richest textile magnate but his factories were not the first to be built in Łódź, that honour goes to Ludwik Ferdynand Geyer (1805-1869) who is considered a pioneer of the development of Łódź textile industry. He owned the White Factory, so called due to its white plaster covering, which now houses the Central Museum of Textiles.

Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź

The White Factory, a classical-style building in the southern section of Piotrkowska Street was the first to erect a factory chimney in Łódź. It was also the first to use steam engines to power its looms. A demonstration of these looms can still be seen today on the ground floor of what is now the Central Museum of Textiles. This museum occupies three floors and houses one of the world’s largest textile art collections. There are also interactive exhibits on textile history, industrial heritage displays and temporary exhibitions. The whole of the second floor is a colourful walk through the history of Polish fashion. The former gardens of this factory are now known as the Łódź City Culture Park home to a series of wooden buildings from different periods of the city’s history.

City Culture Park in Łódź

Łódź City Culture Park is a street of relocated period houses which tell the story of the city through micro-histories of the residents at the time. The first house, 105 Piotrkowska, was built in 1826 and belonged to a wool weaver who worked from home using his own wooden loom. There is ‘context room’ in each of the five houses detailing the history of Łódź at the time. Visitors can read short biographies of the people who lived in each house, a fascinating insight into life during different periods of the city’s history. There is also a church, a tram stop building, and a summer holiday villa on this site. The museums described above are all in the old town of Łódź but the building of a new underground station, Łódź Fabryczna, has led to the creation of the New Centre of Łódź (NCŁ). And NCL features EC1, the renovated first power station of the town. Central to EC1 is the Centre of Science and Technology.

Centre of Science and Technology at EC1 in Łódź

The Centre of Science and Technology occupies one of five large buildings at the old city poser plant. It consists of two blocks, EC1 East started operations in 1907 and EC1 West was built between the two world wars. Post second world war this power plant was transformed into a heat and power plant. It operated until the beginning of the twenty first century. 2008 saw the start of its revitalisation and transformation into a cultural, educational and entertainment centre. The Science and Technology Centre is the largest centre of its kind in Poland. It features a state-of-the-art planetarium and the opportunity to experience the running of a power plant as well as many other inter-active opportunities. An outdoor terrace above the fifth floor has a great panoramic view of the city below. On the same site is the National Centre of Film Culture.

National Centre of Film Culture in Łódź

The National Centre for Film Culture is very different from the Film Museum mentioned earlier which only concentrates on the importance of the film industry to Łódź and Poland. This centre creates opportunities to learn about all aspects of film culture through exhibitions and creative opportunities relating to the making of films. Lounging in one of the large armchairs visitors have the opportunity to learn about big names in the film industry for example Max Factor and how he seized the opportunity to introduce his make up to the industry. Nearby is the Centre of Comics and Interactive Narration.

Centre of Comics and Interactive Narration in Łódź

Simple curiosity may lure visitors into the Centre of Comics and Interactive Narration to find out what this unusual museum is all about. The opening date for this centre coincided with the thirty-fourth edition of the International Festival of Comics and Games – an annual event in Łódź. The centre is an educational space dedicated to the art of comics, video games, gaming and virtual reality. Inspiration derives from the Witcher. A favourite character with the citizens of the town, the Witcher was created by Andrzej Sapkowski a resident of Łódź. A mural featuring the town’s version of this character adorns one of its tallest skyscrapers. Workstations in this centre allow visitors and students to create their own comic characters and devise video games.

Łódź has emerged from its cloak of industrialisation to become the cultural capital of Poland. For more information regarding the attractions mentioned in this article click here 

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