Central Museum of Textiles

The Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź, housed in the historic White Factory, displays Poland’s largest collection of textiles, including yarns, fabrics, and machinery.

Planning your visit

Łódź was Poland's Manchester — a village that grew into a textile metropolis of half a million within a century, built on cotton by German, Jewish and Polish industrialists, and largely abandoned by the industry after 1989. The Central Museum of Textiles occupies the White Factory, Ludwik Geyer's 1830s mill, one of the first mechanised cotton works in the region.

The collection is Poland's largest textile holding: historic fabrics, folk weaving, contemporary fibre art, and the machinery of production from hand looms through steam-powered mechanical looms, some of which are demonstrated. The International Triennial of Tapestry, held here, has made the museum a fixture in fibre art internationally.

Behind the factory, an open-air section preserves relocated wooden workers' houses, showing the domestic conditions of the mill hands.

Łódź's Piotrkowska street, industrial palaces and the Manufaktura complex in a converted factory make the city's whole fabric legible as an industrial monument. Allow two hours. Bookable options include private guided tours. Current availability is shown below.