Every design for Łódź

Did you grow up between red-brick mills and factory owners' palaces, in a city whose name is the Polish word for boat? Łódź has no sea and no great river, only the canalised Łódka and a ring of small streams, yet it became one of the largest cities in Poland on the strength of textiles alone.

Ask anyone from here and the memories come in textures: red-brick walls on the way to school, the vast courtyards of the Biała Fabryka Geyera, the ornate rooms of the Pałac Karola Poznańskiego, which stood next to cramped tenements in the contrast Władysław Reymont described in The Promised Land. There is pride in it, and some grief too, because the Litzmannstadt Ghetto is part of the same streets. After a hard decline that began in the years following the end of communism, the centre has slowly been coming back to life.

Łódź is also a film city, home to the National Film School that trained Andrzej Wajda and Roman Polański, and a UNESCO City of Film. Its Muzeum Sztuki was the first museum in Europe devoted to modern art. And locals can tell you exactly where the middle of town is: a hundred metres south of the corner of Tuwima and Przędzalniana streets.