Manufaktura

Izrael Poznanski's cotton mill was one of the largest industrial complexes in nineteenth-century Europe, a walled block of red brick spinning and weaving halls, warehouses and workshops covering some 27 hectares beside the owner's palace. It closed in the 1990s and was redeveloped between 2002 and 2006 into Manufaktura: the halls kept and cleaned, a large public square opened in the middle where the yards were, and the space filled with shops, restaurants, a cinema, a hotel and, importantly, cultural tenants - the Lodz Museum of Art occupies a former weaving mill as MS2, showing a collection of twentieth-century avant-garde that is one of the best in Europe, and there is a factory museum covering the mill's history and working conditions. It is a shopping centre, and people who dislike that will say so, but the brick is the conversion kept more of it than most such projects do.

History

In 1835 Kalman Poznański moved to Łódź with his one-year-old son Izrael, who later inherited the business and built it into a huge cotton works; at his death in 1900 his assets were estimated at 11 million roubles. The factory later worked as the Poltex cotton works, the Poznański palace became the seat of the city museum in 1975, the French company Apsys bought the complex in 1999, and Manufaktura opened in May 2006 (Wikipedia, Manufaktura).

The main sights

• A 27-hectare mill complex - red brick halls, warehouses and workshops.
• An opened public square - where the factory yards were.
• MS2 - the art museum's avant-garde collection in a former weaving mill.
• A factory museum - the mill's history and its working conditions.

When to go

All year. Half a day.

Good to know

It is primarily a shopping and leisure centre and is busy and commercial. The museums close on Mondays and are separate tickets. The historic interpretation is thin outside the factory museum.

Nearby

Poznanski Palace is next door; Piotrkowska is a walk south-east.

Key facts