118 Piotrkowska Street, 19th-century tenement house on Piotrkowska Street, Łódź, Poland.
Juliusz Szulc Tenement House at 118 Piotrkowska Street is a neoclassical brick building. In the mid-1880s it had one upper floor; a second was added around 1891 to a design by architect Ignacy Markiewicz. A courtyard behind the street front holds a former synagogue space, now the Odlot Gallery.
The building was constructed during Łódź's industrial boom in the late 1800s as the city transformed into a major manufacturing center. It was owned by Julius Szulc, a figure connected to the city's expanding commercial prosperity during that time.
In the courtyard, a synagogue founded by Henoch Bryczkowski operated from 1895 until German forces devastated it during World War II. Its site now holds Galeria Odlot, run by the Towarzystwo Przyjaciół "Domu na Osiedlu", showing handicrafts, textiles, paintings and sculptures made by the association's wards. The courtyard also holds the Surindustrialle gallery and café and the Myszy i Ludzie antiquarian bookshop.
The building stands at Piotrkowska 118, on the main pedestrian stretch of Piotrkowska Street. The courtyard is reached through the passage from the street and holds the Surindustrialle gallery-café, the Myszy i Ludzie antiquarian bookshop and the Odlot gallery. Look for the "Dupa Tuwima" relief on the window grille of Surindustrialle.
The hidden courtyard reveals how factory workers and their families actually lived in this neighborhood during the industrial era, telling a different story than the ornate street-facing facade suggests. This contrast between public appearance and private reality offers insight into social life of that time.
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