Manufaktura

Manufaktura occupies the former mill empire of Izrael Poznanski, one of the great Łódź textile magnates, whose red-brick factories once employed thousands. Rather than demolish them, the complex was restored and opened in 2006 as a cultural and leisure quarter, and it has become the city's most visited destination. It sits just off the northern end of Piotrkowska Street, so the two combine into a single walk through nineteenth-century Łódź.

It is the best single introduction to what Łódź was built on, and it works in any weather. The brick halls are handsome in their own right, and the enormous open square at the centre gives the whole place room to breathe, filling with markets, fountains and events through the year. Families, culture-seekers and anyone caught by rain will all find something here.

The restored buildings hold a mix of culture and leisure:

• MS2, a branch of the Museum of Art in Łódź, showing twentieth and twenty-first century work.
• A factory museum inside the old spinning mill, telling the story of the works.
• A hands-on science centre, a multiplex cinema, restaurants and shops.

Alongside stands the Poznanski Palace itself, an ornate residence that now houses the Museum of the City of Łódź.

The oldest of the mills, the five-storey spinning mill on Ogrodowa Street, was built in the late 1870s, and the wider factory complex grew around it as the family's fortune expanded. Production ended in the twentieth century, and the site stood derelict before its conversion. The restoration kept the industrial brickwork and reused the halls, which is why the quarter reads as a factory rather than a shopping centre.

Allow two to three hours for the square, a museum and a meal. Add more if you want both the art and the city museums, or if you are visiting with children who will use the science centre. Combined with a walk down Piotrkowska, it fills a comfortable half day.

The square is at its liveliest on warm-weather weekends and during seasonal markets and the Christmas period. Weekday mornings are quieter for the museums. Because so much is indoors, it is a reliable choice on a wet or cold day.

Manufaktura is a short walk north of the top of Piotrkowska Street and close to the Łódź Fabryczna station, so it is easy to reach on foot from the centre. Trams and buses stop nearby, and there is parking on site. Fast trains link Łódź to Warsaw in a little over an hour.

The main square and ground-floor units are largely level and step-free, and the modern venues were fitted with lifts and ramps during the conversion. Some older sections and the palace have historic layouts, so check with individual museums for their access details.

Manufaktura is the anchor of a wider walk through industrial Łódź:

• Piotrkowska Street, the long commercial spine of the city, just to the south.
• Nikiszowiec in Katowice, a preserved miners' settlement that makes a natural comparison further south.

No. It has shops and restaurants, but it is built into a restored textile mill and includes an art museum, a factory museum, a science centre and the city history museum in the neighbouring palace, all around a large public square.

Yes. Much of what there is to do sits indoors, so it is one of the better options in Łódź when the weather turns, and it works well for families.

Manufaktura sits just off the northern end of Piotrkowska, so most visitors walk the street and the quarter together for a full picture of the city's textile past.