Every design for Police

In the Middle Ages Police grew so fast at the mouth of the Oder that the duke stripped it of its town rights to protect nearby Szczecin, and the town only won them back in the nineteenth century. In between it traded in hops, and today it is one of the biggest towns of the Szczecin metropolitan area, with a sea and river port of its own.

Few towns hold a river mouth inside their own limits, but here the Oder opens out towards the lagoon among six islands, reed beds full of birds and the forest of Puszcza Wkrzańska. Everyday life runs between the port, the housing estates and the woods, with Szczecin's centre a short ride to the south. The name comes from pole, the Slavic word for field.

The Fabryka benzyny syntetycznej w Policach is the hardest landmark on the map: a wartime plant built on forced labour and bombed by the Allies again and again. Wearing Police means carrying all of it at once, the river, the forest and a history the town has kept in view.