A Pole aside: Vibrant and cool, Lodz is a must see city – Belfast News Letter

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What do former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, cult movie-maker David Lynch and present Miss World Karolina Bielawska have in frequent?

If you appropriately answered that they’re all large admirers of Poland’s third largest city, Lodz, then you really want to get out extra.

I’ve to admit I’d by no means even heard of Lodz – which lies about 75 miles south west of the nation’s capital Warsaw – earlier than a current go to.

Joanna Rajkowska created Rose Passage as a part of the “Lodz of Four Cultures Festival in 2013

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Now, nevertheless, I can completely respect the above trio’s love for this little recognized city, lengthy referred to as the textile capital of Poland.

Lady Thatcher visited right here in October 1991 as a part of a British Know How Fund initiative and extolled its wealthy industrial heritage. The love-in was full when the Iron Lady was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Lodz eighteen years later. You may even see a plaque marking her historic go to in a little courtyard off Piotrkowska Street, extra of which later.

Cult film maker David Lynch seemingly caught the Lodz bug too, falling in love with the cityscape of hulking purple-bricked factories and taking pictures his 2006 movie Inland Empire right here.

The Montana-born director later teamed up with architect and businessman Andrzej Walczak and Camerimage movie competition director Marek Żydowicz to suggest creating a cultural centre to be constructed at EC1, a 100-year previous former thermal energy plant, which now homes the impressively cavernous Science and Technology Centre. The authentic venture by no means materialised.

Heart of the city: Piotrkowska Street

Lynch described Lodz as having a “beautiful winter light, low-hanging grey clouds. The architecture and factories and leafless trees- it’s beautiful.”

And as for Karolina Bielawska, the Lodz-born magnificence turned Miss Poland and turned the 70th Miss World in Puerto Rico in March this 12 months. In true Miss World style the 22-year-previous is most happy with her Beauty with a Purpose venture, “Zupa Na Pietrynie”, which supplies everlasting assist to the homeless within the city.

In truth the nearer one appears, Lodz is a city of surprises and contradictions – not least in how its title is pronounced. Say ‘Wooge’ and you’re nearly there. In Polish Lodz means ‘boat’, a truth mirrored within the city’s coat of arms.

It’s a multicultural, energetic city hotspot in a fixed flux of change, in search of virtually on each nook to reinvent itself with out ever forgetting its superb industrial previous.

Polish cool: Off Piotrkowska in Lodz

Maybe Lodz really suffers from a but undiscovered ‘third city syndrome’ because it seeks to muscle in on Warsaw and Krakow’s standing on the worldwide tourism map.

Under-rated it could be however there are large and thrilling modifications going down on this ‘Manchester of Poland’.

And the airline trade is clearly catching on too.

In June Ryanair introduced its greatest ever winter schedule for Lodz, together with three new routes from Alicante, Brussels Charleroi, and Milan Bergamo. It now operates 25 weekly flights into Lodz. It’s that form of connectivity which may show ‘huge for Wooge’.

Monopolis – the brand new face of Lodz

Back in 2019 Lonely Planet listed the city in second place in a high 10 of worth locations of the 12 months and was massively impressed with the transformations of former factories into cultural, leisure, and business areas. In the record, Lodz even overtook the Great Smoky Mountains National Park within the US, Maldives and Houston, Texas as a must-visit vacationer vacation spot. So for travellers who need worth for cash – and who doesn’t in these money-strapped days – Lodz needs to be high of your want-record.

And this 12 months the city was additionally chosen by National Geographic Traveller as one of many “Best of the World 2022” locations. The information notes that the city’s former industrial areas and deserted factories at the moment are being reborn as parks, cultural centres, residences, companies and retail areas. In truth the worth of ongoing public renovations at present tops PLN 425 million with a appreciable portion of that being spent on the transformation of the notorious Włókiennicza road, as soon as described as “a Dickensian-style den of thieves.”

An outward, ahead trying city, Lodz appears to abide by the maxim famously uttered by Kevin Costner within the inspirational movie Field of Dreams: “If you build it he will come.”

That’s actually true of the the gorgeous Lodz’s Nowa Lodz Fabryczna, the third largest railway station funding in Europe. The new, cosmic face of Polish railways took 5 years to construct and price 1.75 billion zloty. It can deal with as much as 200,000 passengers a day. So when guests and vacationers arrive right here of their droves – as they most actually will – Lodz will likely be prepared.

In truth, between 2000 and 2019, vacationer arrivals in Łódź greater than doubled, from 462,780 to 1.23 million.

Way again within the 19th century Lodz turned the embodiment of the American dream, even turning into referred to as the ‘Promised Land’ however after the autumn of communism in 1989, it misplaced a lot of its entry to Soviet textile markets and this, mixed with Asia’s rising dominance within the sector, noticed the city lose its standing as a textiles mecca.

Manufaktura is a magnet for residents and guests in Lodz

But quite than really feel sorry for itself the city sought to weave a new strand to its industrial legacy by means of fixed reinvention. It has actually minimize a totally different fabric for its future – and it’s working.

A working example is the significantly spectacular Manufaktura complicated, previously the Cotton Products Company, constructed by one of many city’s enterprise titans, Izrael Poznanski, which employed 7,000 folks in its 1913 heyday.

The 67-acre web site was purchased by French firm Apsys in 1989 who reworked the 13 historic buildings into a fashionable shopping center, arts centre and leisure complicated.

Inside, the Muzeum Fabryki explores the historical past of the Poznański household’s cotton empire and the lives of the manufacturing facility staff and Manufaktura additionally homes the MS2 Museum of Art, numerous eating places, greater than 250 outlets, a cinema, theatre, bowling alley climbing wall and the Vienna House Andels Lodz lodge.

It hosts a lot of out of doors occasions together with a skating rink in winter and a man-made seaside in summer time. Its vibrant, energetic ambiance is a magnet for households and guests and when it opened in 2006 it took the tourism sector by storm, profitable the golden certificates of the Polish Tourism Organisation for the most effective tourism venture in Poland. Its title was thought up by native college students and it has turn into a springboard and beacon for the city’s reinvention.

And if purchasing is your factor, Piotrkowska Street is one other spotlight. At over two miles lengthy it has turn into a image of the city and is one of many longest purchasing streets in Europe. It pulsates with outlets and boutiques, bars and eating places and hosts festivals and occasions such because the Light Move Festival and Festival of Street. Rickshaw rides alongside it can be found.

However the trendiest spot on the cultural map is OFF Piotrkowska, a buzzing artwork, design, gastronomic and membership district housed throughout the partitions of Franciszek Ramisch’s former cotton mill. You can seize a seat outdoors, have a latte – or one thing stronger – and wind down.

For a totally different vibe head to the visually gorgeous Monopolis, a sheek new workplace, leisure and cultural complicated constructed on the positioning of the Vodka Monopoly works which additionally has incredible eating places, occasions areas and artwork galleries.

This innate skill to showcase its historical past by means of artistic redesign is one other of Lodz’s exceptional strengths. The well-known Scheibler manufacturing facility, which was initially based by industrialist Karl Scheibler within the early 20th century, was renovated in March final 12 months.

As a part of the Fuzja Project, overseen by Echo Investments, the manufacturing facility is now a part of a new multifunctional city quarter that consists of residences, places of work, and retail and hospitality areas.

Marek Bańczyk, CEO of US-primarily based enterprise technique advisory firm Cityglobe, completely summed up the variety and vitality of the city and the brand new quarter. “While the textile industry is no longer dominant nor critically significant for Łódź, it enriched the city with a nuanced identity trait,” he says. “If Poland’s metropolises were depicted as personality types, Łódź would probably be a lo-fi Brooklyn-type hipster with elements of fashionable extravaganza.”

And including to the imaginative sprawl of city and bohemian developments is the city’s inexperienced credentials. Though not instantly apparent, a third of Łódź is inexperienced area, starting from new parks to the two,977-acre Łagiewnicki Forest which is ultimate for a biking time out and picnic. You may even borrow books from a library merchandising machine to relax within the many parks – there’s one within the basement of Cinema City – (the place you’ll be able to pop as much as the rooftop and take a zipline over Manufaktura).

Named a UNESCO City of Film in 2017 for its wealthy cinematic tradition, Łódź is also referred to as ‘Poland’s Hollywood’, a city obsessive about movie and cinema. It has historical past, after all. The first cinema within the then occupied Russian empire was based in Lodz in 1899.

It has probably the most dynamic artwork scenes in Poland and is residence to the Lodz Film School, a cradle for essentially the most famend Polish actors and administrators, together with Roman Polanski, Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Kieslowski. Its place in world movie was additional enhanced in February this 12 months when it was introduced Netflix had teamed up with the varsity to supply college students workshops in movie-making.

So a go to to the Film Museum, the one one in Poland, is a must-see however be careful too for impromptu movies projected onto buildings and parks all through the city, particularly throughout the summer time.

Film followers may even keep on the splendidly kitsch Stare Kino Cinema Hotel, a 19th century property with décor impressed by well-known Polish movies related with Łódź.

The road artwork scene right here is buzzing too; it is a city of visually-arresting murals. Covering 26 flooring, spanning an space of two,000 sq/m, and reaching 78-metres in top, the work on the aspect of a housing complicated referred to as Manhattan, options Geralt of Rivia as its principal character from The Witcher. Designed by Jakub Rebelka, it is Poland’s largest mural.

Another actually distinctive piece of road artwork is Pasaż Róży (Róża’s Passage), a complete home lined in a mirror mosaic by the Polish up to date artist Joanna Rajkowska.

Arts, tradition, enterprise, meals and drink, know-how and sustainability – and historical past, after all – all fortunately co-exist on this joyful and friendliest of cities.

It deserves your consideration proper now as a result of it actually is a Pole aside.

Discovering Lodz: Places you merely gotta see

One of Poland’s largest business and leisure complexes, positioned throughout the grounds of the previous Izrael Poznanski textile manufacturing facility. Manufaktura homes over 250 outlets, a lot of eating places, two museums, a bowling alley, a cinema and a lodge.

The eclectic palace of textiles baron Izrael Poznanski is the biggest industrialist residence in Poland. Poznanski wished the palace to drawf all different buildings in Lodz in each dimension and splendour. He didn’t dwell to see it accomplished.

Located within the ending plant of the massive textile manufacturing facility based by Izrael Poznanski within the 19th century. The exhibition is complemented by common demonstrations of the unique weaving looms, previous chronicles and fascinating footage of those that labored there.

At greater than two miles lengthy, Piotrkowska Street is one of many longest purchasing streets in Europe. Sumptuous palaces, richly adorned tenement homes, former factories that appear like Gothic strongholds, church buildings and after all extra bars and eating places than you’ll be able to shake a stick at. Perfect to discover by bike or foot, and even rickshaw.

Seriously hip space on the previous manufacturing facility web site of Franciszek Ramisch is a cool assembly place for artwork, tradition, nice meals and drinks. The distinctive venture additionally brings collectively entrepreneurs from the artistic industries sector. Grab a deck chair or luxurious bean bag, chill, have a beer and watch the world go by.

The Museum of Art, in Poznanski’s palace, is one essentially the most attention-grabbing and richest collections of 20th and 21st artwork in Europe. Includes the priceless International Collection of Modern Art initiated by artists of the a.r, group: Wladyslaw Strzeminski and Katarzyna Kobro. MS2 is positioned in Manufaktura.

Billed as Europe’s most fashionable zoo growth the Orientarium covers round 18.5 acres and options capuchin gibbons, Sumatran orangutans, Malayan bears, sharks and rays. It’s plain stars are Alexander, the one-tusked Indian elephant and Kraken, Europe’s largest gavial crocodile. The zoo additionally options lions, tigers, giraffes and very pleasant penguins apparently.

One of Europe’s two largest necropolis the place round 180,000 individuals are buried. You will discover matzevot, tombs and monuments of many Jews who contributed significantly to the city, together with Izrael Poznanski’s large tomb.

The solely museum in Poland (housed within the former palace of Karol Scheibler) that paperwork the historical past of cinema. It has a powerful assortment of cameras, camcorders, projectors, movie set designs and memorabilia of the creators of Polish cinema.

The historic railway station the place the city’s Jewish inhabitants had been deported to concentrations camps Kulmhof and Auschwitz. Incredibly transferring are the lists and belongings left behind by these making a final journey to their deaths. Haunting and unmissable.

Where to remain: Puro Hotel. Excellent location near Manufaktura and a brief stroll to Piotrkowska Street. Great beds, tremendous attentive employees, cool room tech, a fab rooftop terrace for luxurious cocktails and its personal cinema, ‘Cinema Paradiso’. Perfect for Poland’s first city of movie.

Lodz’s gorgeous new railway stationPoznanski Palace was reworked into a Neo-Renaissance and Neo-baroque fashion residence throughout the years 1888 to 1903