Freedom Square in Łódź — the octagon where the city starts counting

A square drawn with a ruler

Łódź has no medieval heart to walk around. The city was planned, and Freedom Square is where the planning began: in 1823 it was set out as the market of Nowe Miasto, a state-sponsored settlement meant to attract cloth weavers to what was then a small town of a few hundred people.

The surveyors gave it the shape of a regular octagon and ran a road south from it — today's Piotrkowska Street, the long spine that still organises the centre. House numbering across the inner city is counted from here, which makes the square a practical reference point as well as a historic one. Three more streets leave it: Nowomiejska to the north, Legionów to the west, Pomorska to the east.

Its name followed the country's history. The New Town market became Freedom Square in 1918, when Poland regained independence; under German occupation it was renamed Freiheitsplatz and then, in 1940, Deutschlandplatz. The 1918 name came back after the war and has stayed.

Town hall and church, designed as a pair

The town hall, finished in 1827 to a design by Bonifacy Witkowski, is the oldest and finest piece of neoclassical architecture in Łódź and was among the city's first brick buildings. Its tower clock was installed in 1834; the building was remodelled in 1888 and again in 1915. The city council left long ago — since 1927 it has housed the state archive, so visitors see it from the outside.

Facing it, where Piotrkowska begins, is a church built in 1826–1828 by the same architect, originally the Lutheran church of the Holy Trinity serving the German-speaking weavers who made up much of the new settlement. What you see now comes from the rebuilding of 1889–1891 by Otto Gehlig and Hilary Majewski: an eclectic design on a Greek-cross plan, with a dome, four corner turrets and round-arched windows. It has been the Catholic church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit since 1945, and its dome and facades were restored between 2016 and 2019, bringing back the original orange colour.

A monument raised twice

The statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko — leader of the 1794 uprising and a general in the American Revolutionary War — was unveiled in the centre of the square on 14 December 1930. Mieczysław Lubelski designed it: a figure of about four metres on a thirteen-metre plinth with cast bronze reliefs.

It stood for nine years. German occupation authorities pulled it down in 1939, work reportedly beginning on 11 November and taking around a week. The same sculptor was invited back to make the replacement, assisted by Antoni Biłas and by Elwira and Jerzy Mazurczyk, and the rebuilt monument was unveiled on 21 July 1960 in its pre-war form.

What changed in 2024

Trams reached the square in 1898 and for decades circled the monument on a roundabout that left the centre marooned in traffic. A rebuild that started in 2022 and finished in early March 2024 moved the tram tracks to the northern side, removed the roundabout and planted trees.

The practical result is that you can now walk straight from Piotrkowska to the monument without crossing rails, and the octagon reads as one space again — worth knowing if you are comparing photographs taken a few years apart.

Getting there and what else to see

• On foot — about twenty minutes from Łódź Fabryczna station, or simply walk Piotrkowska Street to its northern end.
• By tram — several city-centre lines stop right at the square, on its northern side.
• By train — fast direct services run from Warsaw to Łódź Fabryczna; the trip takes a little over an hour.
• At the square — the Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, with roots in the city museum founded in 1918 and in its present form since 1956; its main building is being modernised, so check what is open before you go.

Making sense of it

Freedom Square together with the Piotrkowska street layout forms part of a Historic Monument of Poland designated in 2015, a status reserved for sites of particular national importance. The listing covers fragments of the city that document one of the largest nineteenth-century textile centres in Europe.

Give the square a slow lap rather than a single viewpoint; the octagonal plan only becomes obvious when you walk it. Then head south along Piotrkowska towards the mill owners' palaces and the red-brick factory districts — in Łódź the history is in the industrial fabric, not in an old town.

How to get there and practical info

Location

central Łódź, northern end of Piotrkowska Street, where Nowomiejska, Legionów and Pomorska meet

Layout

a regular octagon laid out in 1823 as the New Town market; the reference point for street numbering in Łódź

Town hall

1827, designed by Bonifacy Witkowski, neoclassical; home to the state archive since 1927

Church

1826–1828 as the Lutheran Holy Trinity church, rebuilt 1889–1891; Catholic church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit since 1945

Kościuszko monument

unveiled 14 December 1930, designed by Mieczysław Lubelski, about 17 metres tall; demolished in 1939, rebuilt and unveiled again on 21 July 1960

Heritage status

heritage register no. A/25, 20 January 1971; part of the Historic Monument of Poland „Łódź — the multicultural landscape of an industrial city”, 2015

Latest redevelopment

2022 to March 2024: trams moved to the north side, roundabout removed, trees planted

Time needed

half an hour for the square itself, two hours with the museum and a walk down Piotrkowska

Current opening times and tickets

Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum on the square

When to go