Since Now a City Is There: Remarks on a City Center. Examples from the City of Lo ****************************************************************************************** * Grażyna Ewa Karpińska ****************************************************************************************** Abstrakt Every city has its center. The heart of a city and its center is usually a street or a squ Lodz, one of the biggest cities in Poland, this role was played for a long time by Piotrko is the most famous Polish artery, which not long ago would be associated with the Lodz of manufacturing, for the lot of Piotrkowska Street and the history of the city whose face an shaped the industry were intertwined. Today the street is an important element of the city does not determine the character of the city and has lost the function of concentrating pu Moreover, it is no longer recognized as the place where the most important events in publi (and that feature, according to Aleksander Wallis, characterizes a city center). Today, ot Lodz have taken over the role of the city center and have brought together on their territ practices of the urban community. What is the cause for that state of things and where is situated today? The article addresses these issues. Klíčová slova city center, mythologization of a city center, culture area 1. To go or to walk "to the city" means to move in one direction - to the center, i.e., to a city "where something is gathered or concentrated" (SŁOWNIK... 1978:241). As Tadeusz Sła "one cannot avoid the conclusion that thinking about a ‘city' must presuppose a reflection kind of centralization, about a point around which particular elements/surfaces of a city/ congregated, and of which a non-urban space is deprived" (SŁAWEK 1997:11). The center is a multiplicity is translated into unity, since in the center exactly a city earns its face a opportunity to be remembered; it is the center that makes a city precisely what it is, thi which can be distinguished from others"(SŁAWEK 1997:18). When I know where the center is, lost because the center orients the city, organizes the topography, and confirms geographi harmonizes all relations between the city and the world; in the center the urban order, co presence of lamps and police patrols," is accumulated (SŁAWEK 1997:16-17). The center is a which Roland Barthes wrote that it is stigmatized, for "there exactly assemble and summari civilization: spirituality (churches), power (offices), money (banks), commerce (malls), a coffee-houses and promenades); to go to the center means [...] - to participate in a glori of ‘reality.'" (BARTHES 1999:82). A Nestor of the Polish sociology of the city, Aleksander Wallis, several decades ago in hi Information and Hubbub. About the City Center (WALLIS 1979) formulated general statements to him, can be regarded as enduring traits of the city center. The center - according to h - is a small part of the city, distinct from the rest of urban space with respect to archi town planning aspects, as well as an institutional infrastructure; it has the best locatio to transport accessibility, and it is of fundamental importance to functioning of the urba "to the community of an area dominated by the influence of the city"; it is identified "as the most important processes of public life take place" (WALLIS 1979:19) and where process life reach the highest level of realization (WALLIS 1979:23) "without which contemporary m contemporary society are incomprehensible" (WALLIS 1979:7). Owing to the last characterist phase of its history the center has always played "the central role in the course of integ development of the urban community" (WALLIS 1979:23-24); and the community, through the ce with the city as a place. Since, for Wallis, the center (along with a residence and a temp important culture area, i.e., a space which represents successive generations and aggregat aesthetic, and symbolic values, and with which, almost organically, needs and cultural pra particular groups (communities) are connected (WALLIS 1979:15-17). Every city has its center. The heart of a city and its center is usually a street or a squ Lodz, one of the biggest cities in Poland, this role for a long time was played by Piotrko street that runs longitudinally in a straight line and is over 4 kilometers long. This is Polish artery which, not long ago, would be associated with the Lodz of labor and textile for its lot and the history of the city whose face and personality shaped the industry wer it is an important element of the city; however, it does not determine its character and l of concentrating public activities. Moreover, it is no longer recognized as the place wher important events in public life take place (and that feature, according to Aleksander Wall a city center). Today, other spaces of Lodz take over the role of the city center and brin their territory cultural practices of the urban community. What is the cause for that stat where is the city center situated today? This article addresses these issues. 2. In the past, Piotrkowska was a trail through the wilderness running from Piotrkow to Zg crossed a small agricultural and manufactural town, Lodz. It became a street at the beginn century when, as the result of realization of government industrialization plans for the c decided that near agricultural Lodz a factory settlement of the same name should be built. started from an octagonal marketplace and expanded southwards, together with the town, bec very beginning Lodz' main artery, and in time it evolved into a factory route, facilitatin the capital and industrial cities that hosted britzskas, carts, droshkies, and, after acti Warsaw-Vienna Railway, buses and electric trams were introduced. Soon after the street was iron pillars marking the distance to Warsaw (RYNKOWSKA 1970:19) were placed along it, and illuminated with city lamps with metal reflecting mirrors that were located in particularl (RYNKOWSKA 1970:52-53). According to primary plans, Piotrkowska was to be a residential district. An industrial ar in the southern part of the city, in the colony called Lodka, along the Jasien River, and part of the street that had not been completed yet (a later section from Emilia Street to Marketplace). However, according to a regulation allowing industrial building expansion in street, industrialization encompassed entire Piotrkowska (RYNKOWSKA 1970:35). Therefore, P became the street of drapers as well as cotton and linen weavers, masters, traders, and fa who had just started their careers. In time, impoverished people moved to side-streets, gi parcels to more affluent citizens (RYNKOWSKA 1970:69). Manufacturers lived in wooden and b of homogenous architectural construction which were at the same time their workplaces (hou serving as workshops). Zygmunt Manitius mentions that at the time when his father came to houses dominated Piotrkowska, and there were only a few storied buildings. One could find the street. "On the other hand," as Manitius wrote, "across a full-length of the street fr building, window, and doorway one could catch a characteristic, and surely cherished in my memories, clatter and clack of a thousand workshops. There was no sign of side streets, ex few which led to the fields [...] On the right and on the left side of Piotrkowska, the pa regular road ran, and a deep wide ditch separated paths (that replaced pavement) and the r 1928:43-44). In time, devices for finishing off raw fabrics were installed in courtyards, that served as workshops; in addition, dye-works, print-works, and finishing-machines func 1970:35-37) because, according to Anna Rynkowska, plants located in the southern part of t Jasien River, "did not manage to meet the needs of an increasing fabrics production" (RYNK Although, Piotrkowska from the very beginning concentrated the whole life of the industria a long time it maintained a partly urban and partly rural character. Manufacturers who liv given some land where they could seed rye and potatoes, and in the courtyards they built b in front of which one would see tons of waste and cowpat; moreover, they bred chickens, co even horses. In the back of every parcel near Piotrkowska, one could find gardens where th grew vegetables, as well as fruit trees and shrubs. Windmills and steam-mills were also lo Piotrkowska (RYNKOWSKA 1970:73-77). People who lived there threw away their litter right o into ditches and empty squares; for a long time only several fragments of Piotrkowska were 1970:55). Along the street you could not find many shops yet, and there were mostly spicy fish, soaps, candles, dyestuff products, cotton yarns, and textile commodities in stock. C bought food in three marketplaces located by Piotrkowska, namely: the New Town Market, the (situated at the southern end of the street), and the Factorial Market (located in the cen Piotrkowska). Food was also available at taverns that - just like pubs - were situated nea and factories of Piotrkowska. Some of the taverns were also beaneries where one could eat (RYNKOWSKA 1970:43-50). It was not before the second half of the 19th century that Piotrkowska began to gain metro It was a significant period for Lodz that was becoming at that time a textile power of the (Kingdom) of Poland, and the city managed to maintain this status till World War II. Piotr sidewalks: initially - asphalt, and next - stone, and what is more, along her entire lengt acacias, and chestnuts) were planted (RYNKOWSKA 1970:110,140-141). An installation of stre (originally - gas, and later - electric) increased the importance of the street allowing t to last till late in the evening. As befits a city center, in Piotrkowska bookshops, print photographers' shops, a theatre, the first city newspaper, the largest hotels in Lodz, cin branch office of the Polish Bank, and a Commercial Bank were opened (RYNKOWSKA 1970:128-18 The northern and central parts of the street were modernized first. At the time when indus Piotrkowska, open spaces between houses (so characteristic of the early rural landscape of became more and more rare; the gardens disappeared and factories, multi-story buildings, a houses took over their place. The second half and the turn of the 19th century are the bes the history of Lodz and the street: it is the time of fabulous fortunes of factory-owners, industrial potentates - Scheibler, Geyer, and Kindermann - competed in order to build on P the most magnificent family residence (called "a palace" at the time). The street was pres people who lived there built houses of the highest possible standard, with electric front Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and sometimes Art Nouveau motifs. The architecture served as of the financial resources of the owners, and talents as well as artistry of its creator. became exclusive; here affluent citizens would rent roomy suites with "all possible conven pipes, water sinks, toilets, and bathrooms" RYNKOWSKA 1970:124); manufacturers, bankers, l engineers, and notaries lived on Piotrkowska (RYNKOWSKA 1970:189). To live on Piotrkowska every educated person. Less affluent citizens lived in annexes situated in backyards resem workers rented flats in the southern part of the street. Ground floors of the fronts of th reconstructed and adapted for commercial purposes, and for the first time in Lodz, one cou shop-windows (RYNKOWSKA 1970:154). More and more shops were opened in the backyards, groun even second-floor - apartments (RYNKOWSKA 1970:155). Teresa Klugman so describes the Piotr before World War II: "Shops side by side, some shop-windows beautiful, and some - full of Ignatowicz's beautiful shop with lots of foreign liquors and sweet-smelling fruits, Kopcin filled with the aroma of fresh bread and pastry, Dutkiewicz's dairy products, Dyszkin's sh charcuterie, and the shop owned by Kokinakis, the Greek, where you could buy the best halv bread with raisins in town. ‘The Sesame toy shop where decorations in the shop-window were week, the enchanted world of fairy-tales where - for free - you could watch and admire wit or moving a muscle" (KLUGMANOWIE 2004:7). Due to its very convenient, central location Pio the most desired place for all institutions; consulates, offices, churches, money-exchange warehouses, textile shops, and shops selling all kind of glass, porcelain, faience, haberd shops, jewelry shops, delicatessens full of luxury goods available only to the most afflue several confectioneries, and restaurants were situated there. Since, in the words of presi "Piotrkowska is the city center, and the city's life is concentrated here" (RYNKOWSIKA 197 decided that Piotrkowska should have regulated traffic and a tram line. The better Lodz industry and modern transportation did, the more crowded and full of shops fancy goods, trams, hackney coaches, billboards, and people Piotrkowska was. It was the ci cultural institutions and places of entertainment were situated here - in restaurants and (referred to as "confectioneries"), and in café-gardens, or verandas opened in the summert elite (writers, actors, merchants, bankers, and manufacturers) would meet to discuss the l to do business, to gamble, to enjoy chansonniers' performances, and to gossip (PAWLAK 2001 every carnival, circus visit, or fete the street was filled with crowds looking for amusem 200147-49). Piotrkowska became the favorite promenade of Lodz citizens. On Sundays, worker distant parts of the city - would come here to have a walk, and that custom was delightful Władysław Reymont in his novel "The Promised Land"; at that time, strolls after Sunday mas organized by young people were also rituals. People "would come to ‘Pietryna' to breath th air of the street that one could feel, thanks to the original design of the buildings, sum windows, and intensive traffic. However, the vast majority of citizens did not carefully a splendid architecture of ‘Pietryn,' but rather they were interested in the commercial aspe street which had the finest shops and storehouses in the city" (PAWLAK 2001:83). Teresa Kl from her childhood "the Majestic Grand Hotel and the Raspberry Hall that children did not entering, the neon lights switching on and off: ‘Radion washes for you'; ‘Persil Ata Imi,' ‘Pulsa Soap'; Trams rang, horses' hoofs tapped when droshkies drove the paved road, and al street one could admire the local fashion-show: smiles behind veils, tapping canes, and ha raised by gentlemen. A beautiful, elegant world. Salesmen ran with newspapers or balloons, flowers in the street, and sometimes a trolley with ice-cream or oranges appeared" (KLUGMA The street was crowded and noisy in the evening as well. "Maidens, fräuleins, and baryszka constantly, with laughs, giggles, happy glances, loud comments on the beauty of the mademo by, this one and that one got a flower, this one and that one was seized by the hand in th indescribable gallantry, finally one would approach - and here again, a dream of a miracle would become the right one - the only one in the whole wild world" (PAWLAK 2001:87). 3. Piotrkowska entered the era of socialism undamaged; together with the whole city, it wa destruction of buildings during bombardments and battles on the front line of World War II authorities did not manage to take advantage of this fortunate position and did not try to modern metropolitan status that the city had before the war. On the contrary, after World and the street were neglected. Authorities of that time made intellectual and cultural lif forced the vast majority of cultural institutions, editorial offices, artists and intellec Lodz; only industry and production were promoted, and the authorities did not care about d sidewalks, or places of consumption and entertainment. Piotrkowska was a scene of economic equal dullness that deprived it of its former magnetism and exclusiveness. The colorful ne beautiful shop-windows disappeared, and fancy restaurants were turned into sordid diners; longer "an elegant and beautiful world." During the decades of socialism previous tenants and basements moved into high-standard apartment houses; the street grew uglier by the yea houses and sidewalks slowly went to ruin. I can remember facades of the tenement houses in 1970s and 1980s - also on Piotrkowska - the sight of which was repulsive due to falling pl of wall, or iron remains of balconies that used to have splendid ornamentation. At the time of the Polish People's Republic, Piotrkowska was alive only during the working offices, and agencies. Its space was mainly defined by business and commerce because state textile) shops - where you could sometimes find products better than anywhere else in the located in ground-floors of the front sections of tenement houses. We would visit Piotrkow buy shoes, bags, jewelry, or clothes for our children (in Piotrkowska the only shop in Lod for children - the Child Domain - was situated) and in order to make all the necessary arr offices and travel agencies. People from all over the country used to come to Piotrkowska (mainly to buy clothes) in two storehouses, and black-market money changers (a significant the official exchange at that time) would await their clients in front of commission-house gateways offering gold and foreign currency. The vast majority of restaurants were located (they opened at noon, and at one p.m. alcohol could be sold, but the choice was rather poo rare product). At the time of the Polish People's Republic, Piotrkowska had "users" who differed from tho War II; people who had built the industrial city and who were emotionally and physically a (factory-owners, merchants, bankers, artists, Germans, and Jews) did not walk along the st They were forced to leave the city for political and historical reasons (KARPIŃSKA 2002). the majority of the citizens consisted of new settlers who came to Lodz (mainly from the c work in textile factories. They lived outside the downtown area and visited Piotrkowska in in order to make necessary arrangements in offices or do some shopping. Young people - stu school children - were frequent visitors of the street; for them a stroll along Piotrkowsk pleasant interlude in everyday life. As far as they were concerned, "to go to the city" me Verve" (as Piotrkowska was named because it was the busiest street in the city, and on Sat its delimited sector would turn into a pedestrian zone). When I was at school (in the late 1960s and early 1970s) we used to play truants in "the V it was a perfect place to prowl around, to watch people passing, to meet friends and to ma someone new, to show off, and to observe shop-windows that were much more colorful than in the city. We used to stroll along both sides of Piotrkowska dressed in our all finery, obl parties, every Saturday afternoon or evening. With equal frequency, my friends and I visit in our university years. We would sit in one of the restaurants. Our first choice was usua could afford and where we could get some beer. For my generation, Piotrkowska was a place a place that shaped our characters and judgments, our way of thinking, and our self-percep made us feel "safely anchored to familiarity, well-known to us and therefore, so dear, whi ‘at home' within the safety given to us thanks to a place of which we are a "glossa," a di point of reference; [this] place to us is an essence of our uniqueness; it is a place that and thanks to which we can express ourselves, since identification with a place is one of individuals' self-determination in the face of the magnitude and foreignness of the world" 2004:172). Piotrkowska strengthened a group-bond and made our identification with the city owing to Piotrkowska, we gained a sense of place and a sense of settlement, and we could l admire a place. At home, many of us would listen to idealized tales of the street before t bustling street full of colors that everyone visited. At that time, the process of mytholo Piotrkowska was established; it became the street that lived in our memories and not in th so the urban myth as a source of emotional impulses was created, and it influenced the way generation powerfully. 4. Transformations related to the collapse of socialism caused changes in the principles o different spheres of life, including the economy's functioning. As the market economy was and due to altered trade exchange with the countries of the people's democracy, the textil Lodz falls apart. It is the end of the age of Lodz as a city of industry - factories are s employees lose their jobs - and so the myth of the workman's Lodz is over. Lodz loses its distinct occupational structure, and factories - firm model of the urban space of the 19th visible evidence of the industrial city's power - are sentenced for destruction. Abandoned conservatory, security, or adaptive pursuit, they soon became places deprived of "the brea many of them till now discourage a passer-by due to broken windows and walls. Local authorities of that time made an attempt to create a city image based on the idea of street city." It was then that Piotrkowska was embellished and, in consequence, for a shor paramount position grew even stronger. Piotrkowska got a new sidewalk and stylish street-l renovated facades of tenement-houses were illuminated, vehicular traffic was prohibited, a street was turned into a promenade; restaurants, cafés, and pubs were opened, and now in t you can sit in tea-gardens; what is more, the state-owned shops do not exist there anymore exchange offices, banks, round-the-clock shops, car showrooms, computer stores, and clothe big shop-windows, and colorful neon-lights have taken over their place. Also, following th of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Lodz Alley of Fame was created, and sculptures were arr the Great Citizens of Lodz Gallery that - together with the Memorial of Lodz Citizens at t Millennium, i.e., plates with names built in a roadway in the central part of the street - of Piotrkowska. The street got a new informative layout that influences her aesthetic and Since 1992, the Lodz holiday (which is becoming more and more famous in Poland), the Techn up in 2003), New Year's Eve parties, happenings, artistic installations, juvenilia, marche feasts have been organized in Piotrkowska. For example, Thread Day was organized (and at t gigantic colorful spider web was hung over the street); for two days the street was turned beach, with boats and a pier, and in the middle of the summer (on the occasion of the Ice 48 hours, a three-story tall ice pyramid was built and it would not melt for six long hour with the eclectic image of the street). The whole effort resulted in a new époque, both for the city and the street. New times and authorities brought life back to Piotrkowska: crowds of young and old citizens and tourist along the street on weekdays and weekends, witnessing her metamorphosis and warming her up with their breaths and body movements. People sat in pubs, restaurants, cafeterias and piz were (finally) situated where they belonged, that is, on the main commercial street; peopl the street where they could meet and experience everything: they could take a stroll on th touch the ice pyramid, see the colorful spider web, have some beer in one of the tea-garde journey on a plane, ride the Ferris wheel, sit on the bench beside Julian Tuwim or at the Rubinstein, or at the same table with the creators of industrial Lodz: Izrael Poznanski, H and Karol Scheibler. As befits a true city center, Piotrkowska Street became a fascinating place for young and old people to meet, the place of hubbub where one could experience a c produced by the intensity of the crowd of people who realized their various passions and i space, while enjoying their aesthetic activities and consumption as well. Piotrkowska once the city promenade (cf. KARPIŃSKA 1995). The street attracted visitors from all over Polan citizens of Warsaw who came to Lodz on Friday or Saturday evening in order to enjoy themse of the clubs in Piotrkowska. Local authorities, designers, and city architects - with (a l from the citizens and tourists - made every effort to change the pre-war image of the stre paintings) as the location for restaurants and cafés where owners of great fortunes had sp and create the new notion of Lodz as a city that absorbs fresh trends and fashions, that i open to the world. In other words, another myth was brought into existence and fostered in citizens as a reference point to imagine their future and the future of their city; a myth source of pride and contentment with the city and with the street. Citizens of Lodz and vi image of Lodz as a city of fun and entertainment, filled with ludic spaces, and Piotrkowsk restaurants, clubs, pubs, and discos - confirmed the notion. And at that time, the street dimension: it began to be perceived as a space of consumption where people could satisfy t needs. 5. Today, the citizens of Lodz do not identify themselves with Piotrkowska Street. The str lost characteristics and functions of the city's heart; it no longer bears signs of highly economical and social activity of the citizens. It is no longer a place-as-a-whole, since fragmentized; it is not perceived (as it used to be) as a city of industry and manufacture was not long ago) as a city of amusement and entertainment. The city is now neglected and partly because it has lost its former economical importance. Privileges of the main street "where one can go and return from [...] about which one dreams, and according to which one brief - orients oneself" (BARTHES 1999:82) are taken over by different spaces in the city: shopping center, Lodz Gallery and, later, by a mall called Manufacture. The shopping and e center Manufacture was opened in 2006. It was situated on the premises of a former factory owned by Izreal K. Poznanski, who was one of the Lodz textile potentates. On a twenty-seve (66.7 acre) parcel thirteen historic post-factorial buildings of unplastered red brick wer completely rebuilt inside; now they host: the Museum of the Factory, the Modern Art Museum in Europe) a collection of 20th and 21st century art, Cinema City with fourteen cinema hal wall, a bowling alley, children fun rooms, many restaurants, coffee shops, pubs, and a dis constructed building, one can find a shopping gallery and, in the center of the whole comp hectare (7.4 acre) Market Square where galas, concerts, exhibitions, happenings, fashion s parties take place. Entire design shares the intention of revitalizing actions popular in an industrial past that aim at conservation of an urban atmosphere from the past in harmon utilization of buildings. Manufacture has "taken away" from Piotrkowska Street the element her conceivable, according to Manuel Castells, as a space of entertainment concentration, lights"disposition. The whole thing is not only about restaurants, discos, and night clubs also, and perhaps mainly, about the issue of "sublimation of the city climate itself" attr a wide range of choices of consumption, leisure activities, and a prospect of surprises (C 244). As shopping and entertainment centers have carefully planned scenery for the spectac every-day life based on urban space organization standards (delimited streets, squares, si lamps, benches, fountains, exhibitions, greenery, parking lots, restaurants), and that all which are evoked thanks to thoughtless wandering around the city and rubbernecking. Moreov have techniques - which are brought to perfection - realizing the idea of consumption as a amusing activity (air conditioning, light, tidiness, physical and emotional safety that le the feeling of strangeness and intimidation, lack of beggars and homeless people). They wa phors of the city center, and hence the terms: "center," "gallery," "temple," "cathedral." they are only a substitute for the center, its miniaturized copies, because they lack the emerging from consolidation and intensity of interpersonal relations, from convergence of produced by many generations, and from the phenomenon of concentration of diversity which of a city center (JARZĘBSKI 1999:418-423). Malls are private spaces, available to particul Therefore, there is no chance of meeting with dissimilarity (for instance, homeless people events). As Marc Augé stresses, elimination (from shopping centers, among other urban loca and irritation - that are inseparable from the life in a city - goes hand in hand with rej that is spontaneous or unexpected. Thus, all that has social, historical, and cultural mea with experience generated artificially (AUGÉ 1997:100). Malls, by imitating the public sph to enter, join in creation of an illusionary image of the center's reality. This is one of which a city "turns its back on the center," and shopping and entertainment centers usurp position of the center (i.e, as sociologists say, we are witnessing the peripherization of and centralization of periphery that result in the change of the urban space perennial cul (JAŁOWIECKI 2005:33). The social life of the city alternates as well - the old crowd that used to flood main str now disperses. In Lodz, people do not spend their free time, as they used to, in the cente Piotrkowska Street). Instead, they visit various shopping centers, the shopping and entert Manufacture, in particular. They are seduced by the colorful and attractive spectacle of M offers a new, safe, and cleaner version of Piotrkowska Street, which now faces progressive and is becoming unable to meet social expectations. Manufacture and Lodz Gallery now attra pilgrims, and Piotrkowska is becoming empty on weekends. Aleksander Wallis wrote that a cultural area plays the right role in the life of a communi community can use it freely, intensively, and systematically. In no other conditions can t as a place and catalyst to conduct vital cultural processes. From this perspective, the cu be at a stage of development, stabilization, or decline" (WALLIS 1979:16-17). In what sens refer to contemporary Lodz and its center? Nowadays, when I say "I am going to the city," it means "I am going to one of the city mal Manufacture or Lodz Gallery). Manufacture became an attraction for visitors to Lodz, one t see and revisit every time you come to the city. Piotrkowska was erased from the memory of experienced its hospitality, including those who came here to spend a pleasant evening or and some beer five years ago. The street is no longer a popular place to meet, nor a place express the urban "we." Cultural life has abandoned Piotrkowska, which is not attractive a street stimulates negative reactions of citizens (such as aversion or objection) due to it negligence; people do not like second-hand and junk shops, empty shop-windows, and street cheap bras and panties made in China right from cardboard boxes. Local authorities' incomp restore the splendor of the street did not earn the citizens' approval. Today Manufacture is the place that concentrates an important part of the common history o and community symbols referring to the biography of Lodz, and at the same time being a ref for individual and collective identifications are gathered there; just to name few of thes neatly cleaned façades of a spinning factory, a weaving plant, and a power station and, in spaces that draw the urban public and unite memories of the past. On one hand, renovated w with the industrial past of the city and, on the other hand, people ascribe new meanings t supplying them with another semantic level and a new worth (not only when it comes to arch also the local history) due to the introduction of new functions to the factorial spaces. the post-factorial complex of Manufacture a new spatial reality is created, designed not o activities, but also arranged (thanks to cultural events organized there to promote variou with painting, sculpture, theatre, music, dance, happenings, photography, and film) as a p open to the latest ideas, trends, and staging conceptions. All these attractions prevent t center from becoming a heritage park for tourists where the past predominates over the fut people come in order to see relicts of the past, and not events of today (cf. WALLIS 1979: attracts mainly young people who do the shopping, watch a colorful show drinking beer and renovated post-factorial settings, and become active participants of the artistic sphere. concentrates cultural practices of the urban community (i.e., undergoes the processes of c and, according to Aleksander Wallis, that is the constitutive feature of a cultural area. post-industrial space, until recently considered as "non-cultural," reached the status of Unfortunately, the area is turned backwards from the city, since it is not connected to an including the nearby Piotrkowska Street. 6. Today, Lodz is a city without a fixed identity and without a permanent center. In order distinctness a city needs aesthetics that are both immersed in cultural roots and created stylistics and symbolism that offer new formal and aesthetic qualities. This kind of strat in a project aiming at the creation of a new city center around the railway station, Facto a ninety-hectare (222.4 acre) parcel where today we have a devastated hundred?year?old pow the remains of a destroyed factory. According to these plans, the Cultural Center of World the latest ideas and trends, a festival and congress hall for four thousand people for the Lodz festivals - specially, Camerimage and the Dialogue of Four Cultures Festival - hotels a Sound Theatre, a Museum of Technology, shops, and restaurants (among other facilities) w near a newly-created Factory Square. Realization of the above project will be another larg the renaissance of the city of Lodz and the formation of its identity. Thanks to the new c city has an opportunity to enter a new era and to gain a new face; by shifting to culture become a cultural and artistic center, stimulating other cities in Poland. The project cha thinking about the city and about ways of building its identity. The city will gain its ch by building something totally from the beginning, nor by saving what has been lost. The fo textile industry has an opportunity to become a city of cultural services and a tourist at the Lodz of the 19th century as well as postindustrial because the city has huge post-fact of a scale which you find nowhere in Europe. Grażyna Ewa Karpińska ethnologist and cultural anthropologist. She is a professor at the U and the head of the Unit of Theory and Research on Contemporary Culture at the Institute o Cultural Anthropology University of Lodz. Research fields: anthropology of the city, anthr urban everyday life, urban sense of community, identity of the city, Balkans: ethnic and c in the countries of former Yugoslavia. References Augé, M. (1997): Non-places. Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. Translated London-New York. Barthes, R. (1999): Imperium znaków. Translated by A. Dziadek. Warszawa. Castells, M. (1982): Kwestia miejska. Tranlated by B. Jałowiecki, J. Piątkowski. Warszawa Jałowiecki, B. (2005): Społeczny język architektury. Od gotyckiej katedry do hipermarketu. miasta. Wokół socjologii Aleksandra Wallisa. Ed. B. Jałowiecki, A. Majer, M. Szczepański, 21-36. Jarzębski, J. (1999): Zniszczenie centrum. [In:] Miejsce rzeczywiste, miejsce wyobrażone. kategorią miejsca w przestrzeni kultury. Ed. M. Kitowska-Łysiak, E. Wolicka. Lublin pp. 40 Karpińska, G. E. (1995): In Our Mind's Eye. The Main Street of the City. [In:] The City: T and the Day Before. Ed. G. E. Karpińska Łódź pp. 193-198. Karpińska, G. E. (2002): Miasto w czasie wojny. Analiza antropologiczna łódzkich doświadcz Tożsamość społeczno-kulturowa miasta. Ed. M. G. Gerlich. Zabrze pp. 59-82. Klugmanowie, T. i A. (2004): ...a droga wiodła przez Łódź. Łódź. Manitius, Z. (1928): Łódź przed 100 laty. „Giewont" nr 3. Pawlak, W. (2001): Minionych zabaw czar, czyli czas wolny i rozrywka w dawnej Łodzi. Łódź. Rynkowska, A. (1970): Ulica Piotrkowska. Łódź. Senderowicz, G. (2004): Ocalić siebie, czyli zatracić się w nałogu? Czyli o historii mitol nieistniejącego miasta. „Studia Laurentiana" nr 2 pp. 169-183. Sławek, T. (1997): Akro/nekro/polis: wyobrażenia miejskiej przestrzeni. [In:] Pisanie mias miasta. Ed. A. Zeidler-Janiszewska. Poznań pp. 11-40. Słownik...(1978): Słownik języka polskiego. Vol. 1. Ed. M. Szymczak. Warszawa. Wallis, A. (1979): Informacja i gwar. O miejskim centrum. Warszawa. Grażyna Ewa Karpińska [ URL "LM-208.html "]