Brzeziny: Clothmaking Tradition and Renaissance Art

Brzeziny combines a strong clothmaking tradition with Renaissance art, church architecture and a glacially formed town pond. This brings together historic city sights and distinctive landscape features for a trip to Poland.

Clothmaking Tradition and Cityscape

In the second half of the 16th century, Brzeziny had more than 300 master clothmakers. At the time, the city was the largest and best-known centre of cloth production in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The historic market square is now called Plac Jana Pawła II and has a medieval layout. Since the early 16th century, the main streets have radiated from its corners. Along S. Staszica, Mickiewicza, Sienkiewicza, Reformacka and św. Anny streets stand Neo-Renaissance tenement houses dating from the late 19th century. They were built during the period when Brzeziny was known as a city of tailors, before the two world wars. In Brzeziny, you can therefore see a historic street plan and later tenement architecture as two distinct layers of the cityscape.

Museum and Sacred Architecture

The Regional Museum in Brzeziny is housed in a Neo-Gothic palace. The parish church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross owes its prominent place in Polish Renaissance art to an ensemble of historic tomb sculptures and is of outstanding historical and architectural value. The church of St. Anne has a different building history: its older masonry section is a former 17th-century chapel, now used as a sacristy; the wooden section dates from the early 18th century. The present complex of the Franciscan church and monastery in Brzeziny was completed in 1700 and retains its Baroque character. For those interested in cultural history, the distinction lies in the surviving details: the sculptural ensemble shapes the parish church’s place in art history, while at the church of St. Anne, the building phases, materials and former use as a chapel can still be discerned.

City Park, Pond and Places of Remembrance

The city park was laid out after 1945 along Piłsudskiego Street. An English garden belonging to the Lasocki family stood on the site in the 18th and 19th centuries. The site’s garden history therefore predates the creation of the city park. A small monument commemorates those buried in the Jewish cemetery in Brzeziny. The town pond is of glacial origin and about 10,000 years old; its island was probably built up. On its shore stands the Studnia św. Jana Nepomucena. It was built in 1880 and is crowned by a statue of the saint.

Starting Point and Surrounding Landscape

If you plan to take the Brzeziny–Tadzin connecting route, it starts in Brzeziny at Plac Jedności Narodowej. Nearby, but outside the city limits, lies the eastern part of the Łódź Hills Landscape Park, with forest complexes near Janinów, Poćwiardówka and Tadzin in Brzeziny Land Commune. The sources of the Mrożyca, by contrast, lie on the southwestern edge of the city; the Mrożyca is a left-bank tributary of the Mroga. The forest complexes in the land commune are therefore geographically separate from the river sources on the edge of the city.

Facilities to Help You Plan

Since 1 June 2011, the indoor swimming pool and municipal stadium have been part of the Centrum Kultury Fizycznej in Brzeziny. If you plan to use the pool or stadium, check their current operating status before your trip.

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