A city break in Łódź, Poland’s capital of cinema and factories

A jolt of unease, a second of profound doubt, held me captive. This wasn’t the quaint antique market I had envisioned. But then, the men replaced the weapons on display, broke into laughter, and dispersed. My curiosity, now laced with a lingering apprehension, propelled me forward. On the car’s roof, a collection of dusty soldiers’ helmets stood silent guard, alongside other military memorabilia. "We were repairing a pavement in the centre of town," a cheerful seller explained, handing me a small, tarnished badge. "Imagine! For 80 years, all this stuff was just under our feet." The badge, a Wehrmacht shoulder insignia from Kuban 1943, conjured images of the brutal Eastern Front, a last-ditch German stand on the Crimean peninsula post-Stalingrad. Who wore this? A young soldier who perhaps never made it home, or one who carried the scars of war back to a shattered homeland? Nothing is clear, yet in Łódź, the past, particularly its tumultuous 20th century, is never truly buried; it lies just beneath the surface, waiting to be unearthed.

My initial arrival in Łódź the previous night had been a disorienting introduction to this enigmatic city, located approximately 75 miles (120km) south-west of Warsaw. The taxi whisked me past an endless array of unlit, colossal red-brick structures, resembling a sprawling landscape of Victorian factories. "Are we in the city yet?" I asked, my voice betraying a hint of confusion. The taxi driver offered a quizzical look. "Yes, this is Łódź," he confirmed, pronouncing it, to my phonetic benefit, something akin to "wudge." I began to discern five-storey blocks, tree-lined streets, and the rhythmic clatter of a tramline. "I could never live anywhere else," he added, a sentiment that resonated with a fierce, almost territorial pride. A colossal blue graffito, caught in the headlights, loomed like a monstrous alien creature against the brick canvas, a prelude to the city’s vibrant street art scene. "Why?" I pressed, but we were already pulling up to an immense red-brick edifice – my hotel. His answer remained unspoken, swallowed by the sheer scale of the building. The reception area was vast, its strange, scalloped red-brick ceiling a tell-tale sign of its previous incarnation as a factory floor, a theme I would soon discover was intrinsic to Łódź’s very identity.

This was my inaugural visit to Łódź, a city whose name had recently piqued my interest due to an astonishing list of cinematic luminaries associated with it. The city’s Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna im. Leona Schillera (National Film, Television and Theatre School), founded in 1948, has forged an unparalleled legacy in global cinema. Its alumni roster reads like a who’s who of directorial genius: Andrzej Wajda, whose epic The Promised Land vividly portrays Łódź’s industrial boom; Roman Polanski, director of the Oscar-winning The Pianist; Paweł Pawlikowski, acclaimed for Ida and Cold War; Agnieszka Holland, known for Europa Europa; Krzysztof Kieślowski, the mastermind behind the Three Colours trilogy; and Zbigniew Rybczyński, an Oscar winner for his animated short Tango. Beyond these titans, a vast array of talent in acting, production, and technical excellence has emerged from Łódź, solidifying its reputation as a crucible for cinematic innovation. The city itself often features as a stark, atmospheric setting, notably in David Lynch’s surreal Inland Empire and Wajda’s masterpiece, where its brick landscapes become characters in their own right. Łódź, I had decided, must be truly fascinating.

My exploration began, as any visit to Łódź should, on Piotrkowska Street, Europe’s longest shopping thoroughfare, stretching for about 2½ miles. My guide, Anna, a fount of local knowledge and infectious enthusiasm, led me through Plac Wolności (Freedom Square). A dance festival was in full swing, a microcosm of Łódź’s eclectic spirit, with hooded hip-hoppers sharing the stage with disciplined troupes of line dancers and girls in colourfully embroidered traditional Polish attire. It was clear that music and dance pulsed through the city’s veins. We then ducked down a side alley, emerging into a breathtaking art installation – Pasaż Róży (Rosa’s Passage), an entire street shimmering under a mosaic of broken mirror fragments, a poignant and reflective creation by artist Joanna Rajkowska. Back on the main pedestrianised route, the blend of ancient and modern continued to unfold: grand 19th-century porticoed palaces, testaments to past industrial wealth, now adorned with vibrant, contemporary graffiti, a dialogue between epochs.

I inquired about Łódź’s fate during the Second World War, a period that scarred so much of Poland. "It was not too badly damaged," Anna explained, her voice tinged with a complex mix of relief and historical irony. "Both the Germans and the Russians wanted the industry intact." This pragmatic, yet chilling, preservation by occupying forces spared Łódź the wholesale destruction inflicted upon cities like Warsaw. However, the city’s population, particularly its thriving Jewish community – once one of Europe’s largest – was decimated. The Łódź Ghetto, established by the Nazis, was the second-largest in occupied Poland, a horrific chapter in the city’s history that profoundly altered its demographic and cultural fabric, leaving an indelible scar.

Unlike Kraków or Wrocław, with their fairytale medieval squares and ornate baroque houses, Łódź lacks a traditional ‘old town’ charm. What it possesses, instead, is an awe-inspiring array of 19th-century factories, primarily textile mills, built on a monumental scale. These were not mere functional buildings but architectural declarations, designed to broadcast their owners’ power, wealth, and often, their grand aesthetic aspirations. Today, this unique industrial heritage has been transformed into a stunning example of urban regeneration, a testament to the city’s resilience and forward-thinking vision.

We turned into OFF Piotrkowska, a former textile factory complex ingeniously reborn as a vibrant hub of small businesses. Its red-brick walls now house a plethora of trendy restaurants, eclectic bars, independent boutiques, and creative studios. Anna, eager to share a local favourite, led me to Pan Tu Nie Stał, a shop whose name held a deeper cultural resonance. "It was a common saying in communist times: ‘You’re not in the queue’," Anna explained, a wry smile playing on her lips. "We said it to people trying to push in." This shop, with its playfully subversive merchandise – T-shirts featuring Soviet combine harvesters or "Czas Pokaże" (Time Will Tell) socks – perfectly encapsulates the Polish attitude to the communist era: a healthy dose of humour and colour, devoid of the maudlin Ostalgie (nostalgia for the East) sometimes found in post-communist East Germany. It speaks to a collective memory that acknowledges hardship but embraces a vibrant, often ironic, defiance.

The initial impetus for this urban renaissance, however, stemmed from disaster. While the old mills had survived two world wars largely intact, they succumbed to the economic shockwaves of the transformacja – the painful transition from communism to a market economy in 1989. "Everything closed down," Anna recounted, her tone solemn. "We call that time the transformacja. It was very hard." Łódź, a mono-industrial city built on textiles, suffered immensely as its primary industry collapsed, leading to mass unemployment and urban decay. But from these ashes, a new vision emerged.

Our stroll continued into the expansive Manufaktura area, once the colossal textile empire of Izrael Poznański, a local scrap metal dealer who, in 1872, began building an industrial dynasty that would rival any in Europe. This sprawling complex, too, has been beautifully restored, now a bustling centre of restaurants, bars, shops, and the captivating Museum of the Factory. Adjacent to it stands Poznański’s opulent palace, a neo-baroque monstrosity of bulging wealth, now serving as the Museum of the City of Łódź. Its grandeur stands in stark contrast to the grinding poverty of the factory workers, a visual representation of the Gilded Age’s stark inequalities.

Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Łódź became part of the Russian Empire, evolving into a remarkable melting pot of German, Jewish, Polish, and Russian influences. In the 1870s, Poznański was among a pioneering group of entrepreneurs who recognized the transformative potential of steam power. They imported state-of-the-art looms from England, rapidly amassing unimaginable wealth and constructing an entire city of handsome red-brick factories, the core of which still defines Łódź’s urban landscape. This period earned Łódź the moniker "The Manchester of Poland," reflecting its rapid industrialization and textile dominance, albeit with a social structure far more volatile than its English counterpart.

The Museum of the Factory meticulously preserves this industrial legacy, housing a collection of working looms dating back to the 1880s. Due to noise pollution regulations, only a handful of these behemoths are ever activated simultaneously – a stark reminder that in their heyday, a single factory might have housed hundreds, creating an unbearable din that rendered many workers deaf. This was truly the "city of the deaf," where the physical toll on the workforce was immense, yet the bosses remained metaphorically deaf to the terrible hardships endured by their employees, a pattern that continued through their communist successors. When Andrzej Wajda arrived at these very mills in the early 1970s to plan his epic The Promised Land, he found that only minor adjustments were needed to begin filming. The tired faces, the crashing looms, the oppressive heat, and the pervasive dust – it was all disturbingly reminiscent of 1880, a grim continuity of labour conditions.

"Is that your favourite film, I ask Anna?" She shakes her head, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Pawlikowski’s Cold War," she states, without hesitation. "I love that film." This 2018 masterpiece, a poignant and visually stunning exploration of a tragic love affair across the Iron Curtain in post-WWII Europe, holds deep personal resonance for many Poles. Based on Pawlikowski’s own parents’ tumultuous relationship, it is a dark, sensuous, and musically rich narrative, parts of which were filmed in Łódź, further cementing the city’s cinematic connections.

Our cultural immersion continued at the Museum of Cinematography, a tour de force that richly rewards prior preparation (perhaps by watching a few Polish classics). It houses an extraordinary collection, from early working film equipment to iconic props from recent Oscar-winning triumphs. Its exhibits trace the rich history of Polish cinema, highlighting the unique artistry of Polish film posters and the school’s enduring influence. By the time I reached the end, I had only a few minutes to rush to the Central Museum of Textiles, eager to delve deeper into the city’s foundational industry.

There, I found Przemysław, a technician and former policeman with a few captivating tales of his own, about to start up a magnificent 1893 Greenwood loom. A pressing question, however, was still bothering me. "Why did filmmaking succeed so brilliantly in this city of textiles?" I asked him, hoping for an insight beyond the obvious. He tapped the cold, cast-iron loom and chuckled. "I’ll show you," he replied, a glint in his eye.

With the flick of a switch, the colossal loom rumbled to life. The noise was incredible, a symphony of clanks, whirs, and thumps, a visceral reminder of the "city of the deaf." Przemysław moved with practiced ease, adjusting and calibrating, his face a mask of concentrated expertise. I watched, mesmerized, as spools of thread began to unwind, the shuttle dashing back and forth with astonishing speed, the warp and weft rhythmically rising and falling. Different colours, each no more than a thin line, miraculously intertwined, converging into a coherent whole. And from the lip of the machine, a beautiful, multicoloured cloth slowly emerged, a vibrant tapestry of threads.

Przemysław looked at me, raising a questioning eyebrow, a knowing smile now creasing his face. "Like weaving a story, right?" he offered. In that moment, the profound connection between Łódź’s industrial past and its artistic present clicked into place. The meticulous craft, the intricate patterns, the laborious yet ultimately rewarding process of creating something new from disparate elements – whether threads or narrative arcs – mirrored the very essence of filmmaking and, indeed, the complex, constantly evolving narrative of Łódź itself. A city built on industry, scarred by history, and reborn through art, Łódź truly is a place where every street, every brick, every film reel, and every woven fabric tells a story.

The trip was provided by the Polish Tourism Organisation, with Holiday Extras lending travel support in car parking, insurance, airport transfers and hotels.