Poland Travel: Lodz Museum of Cinematography, Lodz Photo Festival & Piotrkowska Street

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• published: 07 Sep 2012
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During our first stop on our visit of Łódź my guide Anna and me stopped at the palace of Karol Scheibler, one of the big industrial textile magnates of the mid 1800s. Originally born in Germany, he moved to Poland in 1848 where a few years later he founded a spinning mill that grew into a factory that employed about 2000 employees by 1870. With his new wealth, Scheibler built a neo-Renaissance palace right next to his factory. Today, this palace is also home the Museum of Cinematography whose exhibits include vintage cameras, animated photography, characters used in traditional Polish animation as well as a "fotoplastikon", a giant drum-like contraption used to show 3D films in the early 20th century. The palace itself is an example of how the wealthy industrial elite lived in the second half of the 19th century. Inside the Museum of Cinematography of Łódź is an amazing collection of Polish and foreign film posters that are often exhibited in Poland and abroad. Łódź is a fascinating city for people with an interest in history, architecture and culture. It has a huge collection of stunning 19th century architecture due to the textile mills that made Łódź one of the wealthiest cities during the Industrial Revolution. We saw former factory buildings that have been converted into upscale condominiums as well as 19th century social housing that was built by industrial magnate Karl Scheibler for 321 families, complete with a fire station, schools, shops and a hospital. Then we drove to another historic structure: the former mansion of the Grohmann family, also successful textile industry entrepreneurs of the late 19th century. Today, the villa is a private property and has not been renovated, but it is used every year as one of the locations of the International Festival of Photography of Łódź that is now being held for the 11th time in 2012. After visiting the photo exhibition in the former Grohmann family mansion, my day in Łódź got even more exciting: my guide Anna and I went to a local hostel and borrowed 2 bicycles to explore the city on two wheels. Apart from some equipment-related challenges, we got on our iron horses and started cycling down Piotrokowska Street, Łódź's most famous street. It is one of Europe's longest commercial streets with a length of almost 5 kilometres. What makes it so amazing is that the buildings flanking the street on both sides are all from the 19th century and the very early 20th century. Looking down Piotrokowska Street is like looking at a postcard from the late 1800s. Since the street's revitalization in the 1990s, many restaurants, bars and shops line this street today and a part of the street is covered by 13,454 cobblestones with names of local residents who participated in the "Monument of Lodz Citizens of Millenium Change" project and got their names inscribed on the cobble stones at the turn of the millennium. Anna has a personal cobblestone here as well. Further along the street is the Łódź Walk of Fame, where internationally renowned Polish actors and directors such as Roman Polanski and Andrzej Waida have been memorialized in the pavement forever. Łódź is a well-known centre of film production and Poland's National Film School has its home here.