Old Market Square in Łódź

Before Łódź became a city of textile mills and Piotrkowska Street, it was a small farming town gathered around a single square. The Old Market Square (Stary Rynek) is the city's cradle – the first wooden town hall stood here, and in the 19th century it was the heart of the Jewish quarter. Today, after a redesign completed in 2024, it is an intimate arcaded square opening on one side onto the Old Town Park.

History: from a wooden town to the ghetto

Łódź received town rights in 1423, and the square was the centre of a town of wooden houses; the town hall was wooden too. South of the square ran the little Łódka river with a pond and a mill. When the New Town with today's Freedom Square was laid out in 1821–1823, the wooden houses on the Old Market gave way to brick Neoclassical townhouses, home mainly to Jewish families – among them Kalman Poznański, father of the famous industrialist Izrael Poznański.

During the Second World War the area lay inside the Łódź Ghetto. After the ghetto was liquidated, some houses were pulled down, and demolition continued after 1945. The present three-storey buildings with steep roofs and arcades were completed by the mid-1950s to designs by Ryszard Karłowicz and his team. The south side was never rebuilt, which is why the square opens onto the park.

What to see

• The redesigned square – in 2022–2024 the old "concrete desert" gave way to greenery, benches and canopies for local market trading. A lively opening with live music and craft stalls took place in March 2024.
• The arcades on three sides of the square, which measures about 105 × 85 m – a rare example in Łódź of post-war historicist architecture.
• A boulder placed in 1998 to mark the 575th anniversary of Łódź's town charter.
• The Old Town Park in the former Łódka valley, just south of the square.

Did you know?

• In 1964 a monument to the communist activist Julian Marchlewski was unveiled on the square, which then hosted rallies and parades. It was removed in the early 1990s.
• The redesign was part of an EU co-funded regeneration project covering 32.5 hectares of central Łódź.

Tripto tip

The square is open around the clock and free of charge; 30–45 minutes is enough for the square and the park. The ground is flat and wheelchair-friendly. The square is on ul. Zgierska, served by trams; from Freedom Square it is about a 10-minute walk. Manufaktura is about 1 km to the west, and to the north lies the Bałuty district with memorial sites of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto.