Museum of the City of Łódź (Poznański Palace)

The Museum of the City of Łódź (until 2009 the Museum of the History of the City of Łódź) occupies the palace of Izrael Poznański, one of Łódź's wealthiest textile magnates. The residence on ul. Ogrodowa, completed in 1903, is itself the star exhibit: it shows the lavish lifestyle of the industrial elite in a city that grew in just a few decades from a small settlement into a major metropolis. Inside you will also find the world's largest collection devoted to the pianist Arthur Rubinstein.

A factory owner's palace

The Poznańskis built their palace right next to their factory, on the site now occupied by the Manufaktura shopping and leisure centre. The interiors are decorated in the historicist styles typical of around 1900, with Art Nouveau touches. In 1975 the city founded the museum that has looked after the palace ever since. The palace marked its 120th anniversary in 2023, when the first floor was given a new arrangement.

What to see

The main permanent exhibitions in the palace are:

• "The Poznańskis: Palace. Power. Generations" – the grand first-floor rooms, including the Great Dining Hall, the Mirror Hall and the family dining room,
• "Łódź in Europe. Europe in Łódź. The Promised Land Then and Now" – how Łódź rose to join the ranks of the great industrial cities,
• the Arthur Rubinstein Music Gallery – two rooms of memorabilia of the Łódź-born pianist,
• "Karski – Margolis – Edelman" – the intertwined lives of three remarkable Łódź natives: the wartime courier Jan Karski, the doctor Alina Margolis-Edelman and Marek Edelman,
• "Kosiński: re/compositions of the self" – on the writer Jerzy Kosiński, born in Łódź in 1933,
• the film office from "The Promised Land" and the Lost Quarter model, recreating Łódź's buildings as they stood in 1939, just before wartime destruction.

Did you know?

The Lost Quarter model shows parts of the city at their most densely built-up, before the war wiped out many tenement houses and synagogues. The museum also has two branches outside the palace: the Museum of Sport and Tourism in a Łódź University of Technology building, and the "Dętka" Sewer Museum in an old sewer beneath plac Wolności.

Tripto tip

The palace is open Tuesday to Thursday 9:00–17:00 and Friday to Sunday 11:00–19:00; it is closed on Mondays. A ticket to all permanent exhibitions costs PLN 27 (reduced PLN 21), and entry to the permanent exhibitions is free on Wednesdays. Tickets are sold until 45 minutes before closing. Allow 1.5–2 hours for your visit.

Entrances are on ul. Ogrodowa and ul. Zachodnia, and in summer also through the garden from the Manufaktura side. The museum has no car park of its own. From Łódź Fabryczna station, tram no. 4 runs direct to the stop at the corner of Ogrodowa and Nowomiejska. After your visit it is a short walk to Manufaktura, the former Poznański factory.