Lodz, with its 742,000 inhabitants is the third largest city in Poland. Lodz is a cultural phenomenon and a fascinating place inhabited by distinguished artists, scientists and industrialists. It is a modern city deeply rooted in tradition with the multicultural heritage of Poles, Germans, Jews and Russians. It is a city of the industrial revolution, the steam engine and the electrical era. It is the city that also houses the world famous Modern Art Museum (Muzeum Sztuki Współczesnej) and the Lodz Film School (Łódzka Szkoła Filmowa). Lodz is a city of creative energy and vibrating with the pulse of our modern era.

A dialogue of four cultures

From the 19th century Lodz had been the "Promised Land" for many nationalities, especially Poles, Germans, Jews and Russians. Among them have been many great industrialists, merchants, bankers, architects and writers who have created a modern city and retained its culture. The Jewish community, at the turn of the 20th century, was estimated at more than two hundred thousand which included in that number the great industrialist Izrael Kalmanowicz-Poznanski, musicians Artur Rubinstein and Aleksander Tansman, the distinguished architect Dawid Lande and the master of poetry Julian Tuwim. The Shoah (The Holocaust), the darkest episode in the history of Europe, took the lives of most of the members of the Jewish community in Lodz. The roadway of death led from the ghetto in Lodz, (called Litzmannstadt by the Germans), to the Nazi death camps in Oswiecim (Auschwitz) and Chelmno (Kulmhof). The remaining material symbols of the Jewish culture, the inherent parts of the cultural landscape of Lodz are its historic buildings such as the centre of the Jewish community (no. 18, Pomorska Street), the Reicher synagogue (no. 28, 1905 Rewolucja Street) and the largest necropolis in Europe, covering an area of 4100 acres (no. 40, Bracka Street), where more than one hundred and sixty thousand graves and seventy thousand Jewish headstones and masebhas (tombs) have been preserved. In the 1830's German weavers and cloth makers came to Lodz in great numbers and the German industrial culture played a significant role in the development of the city. It has left priceless reminders of technical and urban history such as the factories and the proud residences of the manufacturers, power and communication machinery, historic tenement buildings, three Evangelical churches, theatres, schools and the cemetery next to Ogrodowa Street. The powerful textile empires created by industrialists of German origin like Scheibler, Geyer, Grohman and Heinzel have survived to this day and are the foundations of various modern institutions. The more than one hundred-year presence of the Russians in Lodz relates to the time when Poland did not exist as a state and the city, paradoxically, had its moment of dynamic development. The remnants of that Russian culture are the Eastern Orthodox Churches, chapels, the headquarters of governing bodies and examples of sepulchre art in Lodz cemeteries. The most significant trace of those times is the St. Alexander Nevsky's Eastern Orthodox Cathedral (Kilinski Street). Built in the neo-Byzantine style on an octagon plan, the church houses a magnificent iconostas. The Festival of the Four Cultures, held annually in September, reflects the multicultural heritage of Lodz.

City within a city

The old textile districts illustrate the power and the investing momentum of those outstanding industrialists. On Tymieniecki Street stands the oldest industrial plant in the city called Kopisch's Bleachery (Bielnik Kopischa - 1826), and next to Piotrkowska Street is Ludwik Geyer's White Factory (Biała Fabryka Ludwika Geyera), inside which the first steam powered engines were installed and used. Today the building houses the Textile Museum (Muzeum Włókiennictwa) and the International Fabric Triennial (Międzynarodowe Triennale Tkaniny) – the most important event of its kind in the world.

One of the most interesting monuments of the industrial age in Lodz is Księży Młyn, built by Scheibler in the 1870's. This city within a city, connected by a private railway network, is made up of residential houses, factory buildings, spinning mills, warehouses, workers' houses, a hospital, a school, shops, a sports park and a power station. The massive red brick walls, mighty towers, monumental gates and chimneys are the symbols of the 19th century's Industrial Revolution - Księżny Młyn remains one of the magnificent monuments of European industrial culture.

Pearls of European Art Nouveau Style

Leopold Kindermann's villa built in the Art Nouveau style (Wolczanska Street) is the most beautiful example of this style in Poland. The picturesque, asymmetric structure of the building topped by a high roof and stained-glass windows is finely encrusted with floral and figure motifs. Equally intriguing and surprising by the lightness of its form and stylish elegance, is the Art Nouveau house (built in 1909) at no.100 Piotrkowska Street (now the famous Esplanade restaurant), distinguishing itself with its fine ornamentation and artistic, hand-wrought balustrades. Equally beautiful is Reinhold Richter's villa (no. 6 Skorupki Street), worth seeing for the ornamentation of its front elevation. Lodz is an encyclopaedia of the Art Nouveau style in its different functional variants as in its villas, governmental buildings, factories and outbuildings. The old Lodz necropolis also contains many Art Nouveau tombstones and sculptures.

The Lodz Film School

For those who enjoy the cinema all over the world the name "Filmówka" or Lodz Film School evokes a smile and words of respect. Among the hundreds of graduates of this school, world-famous directors, cameramen and actors there are Academy Award Laureates and winners of prestigious prizes in Cannes: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Roman Polanski, Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Zanussi. The Karol Wilhelm Scheibler Palace contains the only Museum of Cinematography in Poland. It has a collection of exhibits relating to the history of film technology and production. Lodz is host to the most important festival of camera work in the world, Camerimage, where the most outstanding cameramen receive awards for their work. Other creators in the cinema also have their festivals here which include the Lodz Media School, The International Festival of Film and Television School, "Reanimacja" - The Festival of Animation, The Festival of Nature films and the Forum of European Cinema. The world of cinema is also represented in the city landscape along the Avenue of the Stars (Aleja Gwiazd) in the pavement of Piotrkowska Street, where there are plaques with the names of stars of Polish cinema inscribed on them.

Factory of commerce and entertainment

The modern centre of art, trade and entertainment, Manufaktura, has been created inside the former "Factory Empire", built from characteristic red brick, once belonging to one of the most prominent owners of many industrial buildings, Izrael Kalmanowicz-Poznanski. The Hotel Lodz, a four-star hotel belonging to the Andels chain, has been opened in the five storey cotton factory (170 meters in length). The nature and the quality of the adaptation of the building, the functionality and the interior aesthetics are highly regarded and as a result have been nominated for the international MIPIM award in the category of a commercial centre. Manufaktura contains an IMAX cinema, restaurants, bowling alleys, a climbing wall, a museum and many boutiques and shops of reputed retailers. Just round the corner in Ogrodowa Street in the Poznanski Family Palace (Pałac Poznańskich), the largest industrial residence in Europe, is the Museum of the History of the City of Lodz (Muzeum Historii Miasta Łodzi). Walking through the museum halls we can learn a great deal about the history of the city, the interiors of the mansions, as arranged according to the tastes of those rich industrialists, and the history of the prominent citizens of Lodz. One of the "iconic symbols" of the city is the avant-garde artistic group, Lodz Kaliska, which is renowned for its sophisticated staging of events and exploits whilst rebelling against the artificiality of 'elitist art' and mass culture.

City street showcase

Piotrkowska Street is the cultural centre of Lodz, the axis of its development in the 19th century city and a contemporary representative showcase. Among the street's more interesting points is Liberty Square (Plac Wolności), which is in the shape of a regular octagon. The Town Hall – one of the oldest historical buildings of industrial Lodz, stands on one side of the square, and next to it, on the opposite side of Piotrkowska Street, are the Catholic Church of the Holy Ghost and the Archaeological and Ethnographical Museum. In the centre of the square stands a characteristic monument to Tadeusz Kosciuszko which can be seen from almost from every point on the 4.5km long Piotrkowska Street. On both sides of the street there are numerous restaurants, artistic showrooms, clubs and endless galleries of shops and boutiques with clothes produced by well known Polish and European manufacturers. Piotrkowska Street never sleeps! When there is no trade there is entertainment, when there is no singing there is dancing. Many concerts, events, sports competitions and fairs take place along this street - the cultural showcase of the city. Piotrkowska Street is also a unique and rich gallery of urban architecture. Some of the outstanding monuments are Herman Konstadt's palace (no. 53) with its characteristic atlases, the banking house of Maksymilian Goldfeder (no. 77), the tenement house of Jan Peterslige (a stonemason) with the statue of Jan Guttenberg on its façade (no. 86), Juliusz Kindermann's house with its Venetian mosaic (no. 137) and the headquarters of the Krusche & Ender Company (no. 143), is delightful because of its floral decoration. The side wall of the tenement house at no. 152 is decorated with the biggest wall graffiti in Poland presenting landscapes of the city of Lodz. At no. 265 Piotrkowska Street stands the tallest church in the city, the St. Stanislaw Kostka Metropolitan Cathedral. Its towers are more than 100m in height. Over the last few years Piotrkowska Street has started to play the role of a sculpture gallery with figures incorporated into it and devoted to the people, events, and the monuments of its leading citizens. There are the statues of the writer Wladyslaw Reymont and his Trunk, Stefan Jaracz and his Seats (a distinguished director and actor), Artur Rubinstein's Piano and the characteristic Tuwim's Bench. A special homage to the citizens of Lodz is the Monument of the People constructed at the turn of the millennium from thirteen thousand bricks with the names of the contributors inscribed onto them.

Cultural Events

• Four Cultures’ Dialogue Festival - VIII/IX, Biuro: pl. Wolności 5, tel. 636 38 21, www.4kultury.pl

• Explorer’s Festival - XI, Łódzki Klub Trekkingowy, tel/fax: 659 75 95,

www.festiwalgor.pl

• International Cartoon Festival in Łódź - X, Łódzki Dom Kultury,

ul. Traugutta 18, tel. 633 98 00, www.ldk.lodz.pl

• "Camerimage" International Art Festival of Film Photography Directors - XI/XII, Fundacja Tumult, Rynek Nowomiejski 28, www.cameraimage.pl

• Photofestival – International Festival of Photography - V, Fundacja Edukacji Wizualnej, ul. Tymienieckiego 3, tel. 684 20 95, www.fotofestiwal.com

• Międzynarodowy Festiwal Graffiti – Meeting of Styles - VII,  www.meetingofstyles.pl

• International Festival of Solo Puppeteers - IV, Teatr Lalek Arlekin,  ul. 1 Maja 2, tel.633 08 94, 632 73 85

• Animated Film Festival ‘Reanimacja’ - IV, Fundacja Kino-Forma i Kino Charlie,

ul. Piotrkowska 203/205, tel. 636 00 92

• International Triennial of Tapestry - V- X, Centralne Muzeum Włókiennictwa, ul. Piotrkowska 282, tel. 683 26 84, 684 61 42

• Lodz International Ballet Festival - V, Teatr Wielki, Pl. Dąbrowskiego, tel. 631 99 60

• European Cinema Forum - IX, Agencja Pro-Cinema Kino Charlie, ul. Piotrkowska 203/205, tel. 636 00 92, www.kinosfera.pl

• International Festival of Film and Television Schools ‘Mediaschool’ - X, PWSFTiT, ul. Targowa 61/63, www.filmschool.lodz.pl

• Tansman International Festival and Competition of Musical Personalities X/XI, ul. Krzyżowa 14/51, tel. 657 86 66, www.tansman.lodz.pl

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