The Promised Land

ONE word sums up the Polish city of Lodz for me and that’s ‘reinvention’. From its magnificent street art and Hollywood-style walk of fame to its Jewish heritage and gradual emergence as a cultural powerhouse, there’s a story of triumph and transformation to be uncovered around every corner.

- Rebecca Younger

While the scars of Poland’s involvement in the Second World War are still evident on the outskirts of the city (the Lidtzmannstadt Ghetto, which over 200,000 Jews passed through on route to Auswitz, is here), Lodz is undergoing a period of change – one that is turning the grey days of post-war Poland into a celebration of industrial and cultural heritage.

Lodz (pronounced ‘woodge’) is nicknamed the Manchester of Poland, not just because it is the country’s third largest city (after Warsaw and Krakow) but also because of its industrial links and because, well, it’s pretty hipster.

Happily marrying the latter two is Vienna House Andel’s Lodge, a magnificent red brick building, which proudly sits at the entrance to Manufaktura, Poland’s largest shopping and cultural centre.

The hotel was formerly one of the Lodz’s biggest cotton-making factories, owned by textile magnet Izrael Poznanski,(the building features in the 1974 Andrzej Wajda film Promised Land) and is vast. It can take a good five to 10 minutes to get from reception to your room, depending on where it is in the 277-bed hotel, but the quirky stencils on the walls, many of which depict those who worked on the hotel’s restoration (although there are some famous characters in their too; see if you can spot Barrack Obama by the lifts), make it worth the stroll. As do the rooms, which with their warehouse-style windows, quirky layouts and abstract colour schemes feel like mini-art galleries.