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Piotrkowska Street Lodz
Piotrkowska Street Lodz

Piotrkowska Street, also called Bigel or Pietryna, is the longest street in Poland. It’s 4.2 kilometers long. Historic residential and industrial buildings of the 19th and early 20th century are around it.

Initially, Piotrkowska Street was a standard tract leading from Lodz to Piotrków Trybunalski in the south and to Zgierz and Łęczyca in the north. The classic city center with a market, shops, and the pleasures of public life focused around it never took shape in Lodz.

Piotrkowska Street has assumed this role with time. Today, the street running southern from Liberty Square (Plac Wolności) to Independence Square (Plac Niepodległości), is the commercial and cultural heart of the city.

It’s a favorite meeting place for the residents of Lodz and tourists. Festivals, concerts, sporting events, happenings, fests, and fairs are held here.

Between Old Town and New Town

Nowomiejska Street Lodz
Nowomiejska Street Lodz

The northern part of the tract between the Old and the New Town Square (today’s Nowomiejska Street) began to be called Piotrkowska Street around 1815. The first plaque with its name is from 1823. Five years later the name was officially confirmed and marked on the map. Lodz received city rights as early as 1423.

But over the centuries, it was a predominantly agricultural city. In the 19th century, it became one of the largest centers of the textile industry in Europe. Lodz has maintained this status to this day.

Settlement of the first drapers and weavers

The first drapers and weavers settled in Piotrowska in 1923. Many manufacturers of cotton, wool, and linen fabrics, which exported their commodities to Russia and China, settled here. Among others, in 1837, the cotton-weaving plant of Ludwig Geyer called the White Factory started under No. 282. It’s one of the greatest monuments of industrial architecture in Poland, now the headquarters of the Central Museum of Textiles.

In the 2nd half of the 19th century, large modern enterprises began to emerge. This included the plants of Scheibler, Poznanski, and Grohman. At the turn of the century, Lodz became the largest industrial center of the Polish Kingdom. And Piotrkowska Street flourished along with it. In 1887, the Grand Hotel, designed by Hilary Majewski, opened at No. 72.

It was originally a factory of wool and cotton products owned by Ludwik Meyer. In 1888, Victoria Theatre, later transformed into the Polonia cinema after World War II, began functioning at No. 67, and in 1899. The first permanent cinema in the Polish land started at No. 120.

Archcathedral Basilica of St. Stanislaus Kostka Lodz

Archcathedral Basilica of St. Stanislaus Kostka Lodz
Archcathedral Basilica of St. Stanislaus Kostka Lodz

In 1912, a Neo-Gothic Church named after Stanislaus Kostka appeared, the highest in Lodz. It became a cathedral in 1920. In 1992 it became the Archcathedral. The building of the church took place between 1901 and 1912.

Emil Zillman won a design competition announced in 1898 at the initiative of the Committee for the Church Construction, founded four years earlier.

His design was extensively corrected by Józef Dziekoński, Sławomir Odrzywolski and Kazimierz Sokołowski though.

Construction work lasted until 1912, which was mainly due to a long break caused by the revolutionary events of 1905-1907. The church has a 104-meter-high tower added to the body of the three-nave basilica in 1927.

Pope John Paul II, Kostka, and The Unknown Soldier

The author of the concept was Józef Kaban-Korski. In 1921, after establishing the Lodz diocese, the church became a cathedral and in 1992 – an arch-cathedral. In 1989, Pope John Paul II raised the church to the rank of a minor basilica.

The church is a Neo-Gothic building with a form resembling monumental Medieval cathedrals. It’s characterized by a vertical structure and many lancet arches. The elevation is clad in yellow clinker brick. The square in front of the church has three monuments: of Stanislaus Kostka, Pope John Paul II, and The Unknown Soldier.

In 1971, the roof of the cathedral burnt in a fire, but soon after reconstruction, the church was once again opened to the faithful.

Many pioneering actions in the history of the city have connections with Piotrkowska Street. It was here that the first brick house appeared at No. 243 in 1835. In 1869, the Lodz Society of Gas installed gas lighting for the first time. In 1876, the first stone pavement, the so-called cobblestones, was laid along the entire length of the street, and in 1898 the first electric tram trundled down this stretch.

Palaces on Piotrkowska Street Lodz

Scheibler Palace Lodz
Scheibler Palace Lodz

Piotrkowska Street was a prestigious address, plots were much more expensive here than in the outskirts. This resulted in the great density of villas and palaces of city entrepreneurs, tenement houses, and public buildings in various architectural styles.

They include:

  • the Neo-Renaissance palace of factory owner, Juliusz Heinzel, at No. 104,
  • the apartment building of printer and founder of the first newspaper in Lodz, Johann Petersilge, with a rich eclectic facade at No. 86,
  • the palace of one of the greatest industrialists in Lodz, Karol Scheibler, with a Neo-Classical facade at No. 266,
  • the palace of industrialist Juliusz Kindermann in the Italian Renaissance style with a unique mosaic frieze made by the Venetian stucco workshop at No. 137/139.

When, in around 1900, Art Nouveau began to dominate art and architecture, Poland’s largest complex of Art Nouveau architecture emerged in Lodz.

Post-war years

The post-war years were not favorable for Piotrkowska Street. Many 19th-century tenement houses disappeared. Owners removed crumbling decorative elements on the facades. The situation changed after 1990 when the city architect Marek Janik established the” Foundation of Piotrkowska Street“.

Its main goal was to revitalize Piotrkowska Street, preserving its historical and cultural heritage and transforming it into a pedestrian precinct. The revitalization took place between 1990-1997 and 2012-2014.

Monument of Citizens of Lodz
Monument of Citizens of Lodz

A lively street

As a result, decorative sets and street lamps in the modernist style appeared in a few sections of the street. Tenements and palaces, in which restaurants, cafés, pubs, and shops opened, came back to life.

It started with renovating the facades, but with time the restoration work began to reach the backyards and annexes. The foundation also came up with the idea of a unique Monument of Citizens of Lodz at the Turn of the Millennium – created by the residents of Lodz to express their devotion to the city and involvement in its matters.

It consists of nearly 17,000 paving stones with cast-iron plates with the founders’ names engraved in them. You’ll find them on Piotrkowska Street’s pavement between Tuwim Street and Nawrot Street.

Street springs with drinking water in the form of granite columns with sculptures of children and fish also appeared at Piotrkowska Street. This was the idea of the Water and Sewage Company in Lodz. The instigators behind this initiative are the Lodz artists, Magdalena Walczak and Marcin Mielczarek.

Since the late 1990’s, on the initiative of cultural animator Marcel Szytenchelm, Piotrkowska Street has showcased open-air bronze sculptures commemorating famous personalities associated with the city. They form the Gallery of Great People of Lodz and include Tuwim’s Bench, Rubinstein’s Piano, Reymont’s Chest and the Creators of Industrial Lodz.

Lodz Movies and Museums

Stars Avenue Lodz
Stars Avenue Lodz

The Stars Avenue is designed after Hollywood’s Walk of Fame and stretches from August 6th Street and the Rubinstein Passage. It’s dedicated to actors, directors, set designers, and cameramen (Lodz is home to the famous film school).

Its originator was director Jan Machulski. There are stars of, among others, Andrzej Seweryn (his star was the first in 1998), Agnieszka Holland, Krzysztof Kieślowski, and Roman Polański.

Walking down Piotrkowska Street, it is worth visiting several museums. The Museum of the Sewer “Tube” is a perfectly preserved oval rainwater tank under the Freedom Square – a part of the sewerage system designed by British engineer, William Lindley.

The exhibition presents objects, documents, and archival photos documenting Lodz sewage and water supply systems in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography (Plac Wolności 14) collects exhibits related to folk culture and ethnography of the Lodz land among other things.

Museum of Pharmacy

In the Museum of Pharmacy (Plan Wolności 2), the interior of a pharmacy from the late 19th and early 20th century was recreated along with the herbs room, library, and lounge. It includes antique apothecary furniture, instruments for producing medicines, and vessels for storing them, as well as pharmacy and laboratory scales, cast-iron, and porcelain mortars.

Central Museum of Textiles Lodz

Central Museum of Textiles Lodz
Central Museum of Textiles Lodz

The Central Museum of Textiles in the White Factory of Ludwik Geyer presents raw materials, textile techniques, technologies finished fabrics, and much more. It also organizes the International Triennial of Tapestry. This is the oldest and the largest exhibition of contemporary artistic textiles in the world.

The museum originates from the Weaving Section established in 1952 in the Lodz Museum of Art. The museum is in the “White Factory”. This is a large classic four-story complex of white-painted buildings (hence the name), one of the most attractive examples of industrial architecture in Poland.

First mechanical machine

It’s from between 1835 and 1839 (by Ludwik Geyer) and housed the first mechanical cotton-spinning and weaving machine in Lodz, powered by the first steam engine in the city. The low wooden ceilings supported by rows of columns of the former factory floor are a superb backdrop for exhibiting historic tools and equipment of the textile industry. Exhibits include Poland’s largest collections of yarns, weaves, knitted fabrics, and samples of industrial fabrics.

There are also manufactured examples of Polish artistic fabrics, women’s clothing, men’s clothing, European tapestries, sashes, oriental carpets, and rugs as well as documents and iconography on textiles. The museum was a co-organizer, but in 1982, took over organizing the International Tapestry Triennial Contest. It’s the world’s largest exhibition and competition of contemporary textile art.

Address str. Piotrkowska 282, Lodz
Telephone +48 426832684

Piotrkowska Street isn’t a pedestrian precinct, but a street with limited traffic. The most pleasant way to travel down it is in a rickshaw. Rickshaws appeared on Pietryna in 1999. They are not only a tourist attraction but also serve a practical role as a means of public transport. Provided with roofs and wind covers, they ride along Piotrkowska Street throughout the year. In 2015, Piotrkowska Street officially became a historical monument.

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