Łódź after dark: red brick, mirrors and cider

Earlier that morning I had been on Trójgarb. That belongs in another article. By evening the day had changed completely: no summit, no trail, just a decision to break a familiar habit and spend the night in Łódź.

We pass through Poland fairly often and Warsaw is usually the automatic stop. This time we chose Łódź instead. We found a decent, inexpensive hotel near the centre, had a quick dinner and went out for a walk without much of a plan. It was one of those minor travel decisions that turns out better than it has any right to.

Manufaktura after sunset

The first stop was Manufaktura, and I had mixed feelings before I had even walked through the gate. The complex occupies the former textile empire of industrialist Izrael Poznański, developed from the 1870s and later operated under state ownership as Poltex. Today the mills, weaving buildings and other industrial structures have been restored and repurposed for shops, restaurants, museums, entertainment and public space.

Normally I find it a little sad when a factory ends up as a shopping centre. A place built for making things becomes a place built for buying them. But here the old brick architecture still dominates strongly enough that the history has not been polished away. You can walk between the huge buildings and at least try to imagine the scale of the operation that once filled this part of Łódź.

Manufaktura was also simply busy. People were eating, walking, meeting friends and, nearby, dancing at a silent disco with headphones. From a distance, a crowd moving to music nobody else can hear looks slightly ridiculous; from close up, it looked like an excellent idea. I passed this time, but it has gone onto the list for a future visit.

From Freedom Square into the mirrors

From Manufaktura we continued towards Piotrkowska Street, starting near Freedom Square. Stretching for about 4.2 kilometres from Plac Wolności to Plac Niepodległości, Piotrkowska is one of the longest commercial streets in Europe and has long formed the central axis of Łódź. More importantly for that particular evening, it was very much alive.

Near the northern end of the street we stepped into Pasaż Róży at Piotrkowska 3. The courtyard is covered with irregular pieces of mirror, an installation by Joanna Rajkowska connected with the illness of her daughter, Róża. The fragmented reflections refer to damaged vision and the attempt to reconstruct an image from pieces. Knowing that gives the place more weight, but even without the background it is visually strange in the best way: an ordinary Łódź courtyard suddenly behaves like a kaleidoscope.

Piotrkowska was only getting started

Piotrkowska was the part that finally changed my opinion of the stop from “good practical choice” to “I should do this again”. There seemed to be an endless supply of cafés and restaurants, but even more people. Around 11 p.m. the street did not feel as if it was winding down. It felt as if the evening was just getting organised.

We contributed in the modest way available to us: we sat down at one café because a sign promised cider. Sometimes urban exploration needs a rigorous selection methodology.

Later, near Piotrkowska Centrum, Łódź supplied one final piece of evidence that it does not take itself too seriously.

The sculpture is Tomohiro Inaba’s Unicorn Monument, installed in 2019. Behind it is the Piotrkowska Centrum tram stop, better known locally as the Unicorn Stable because of its colourful canopy. Inaba’s metal unicorn seems to dissolve into the air, so the mythical-animal logic is surprisingly consistent from monument to public transport.

We had come to Łódź mainly because we needed somewhere to sleep. Instead we got red-brick industrial history, a silent disco, a courtyard made of broken mirrors, a cider stop and a main street that still seemed to be accelerating close to midnight.

Stopping in Łódź was a very good decision. I expect it will not be the last time.