Łódź's today and Holyoke's tomorrow?

Łódź: It's David Lynch's favorite city.

This weekend I will be taking a day trip to the Polish city of Łódź. Having done a thorough scan of it's architectural and cultural treasures... I came across a very interesting development: a converted mill complex taken to a whole new level by Jestico + Whiles.

The project(s): Centrum Manufaktura and Andels Hotel Lodz look absolutely stunning, stylish, and very modern. Although they aren't pushing the envelope too far, it's still impressive from a design standpoint.

This type of brick factory structure is an abundant commodity in the city of Holyoke. Should this be the interior design standard for future mill conversions in downtown Holyoke? How great would that be!

As for Holyoke, in the meantime, Open Square is carrying the torch and has a similar mixed-use vision. As the market heats up we can all hope that there will be many rad converted factories.

How about that data-center?

Zamość?

On an after-work research spree, I came across a beautiful aerial view of Zamość and was excited to find a dense, miniature city plan. I never knew much about this small town in Poland, but this picture along with images of the market colorful Armenian merchant houses that line the market square, inspired to me to find out more.



According to UNESCO, Zamość is a "perfect example of a late-16th-century Renaissance town", not only in terms of Poland but for the entire of world! It's supposedly one of the only untouched Renaissance cities on the planet. It has an interesting story too: Jan Zamoyski, an extremely wealthy Polish magnate, had tremendous sums of money to burn so he hired a reknown architect to create what they considered to be an "ideal city" and a capital to bypass paying certain trade tariffs. Clever. When all was said and done: the outcome was vivid, unique and awe-inspiring.


Zamość... it might even be more adorable than Cieszyn. Hopefully on my next trip, I'll have the opportunity to explore Zamość.