Collections
Open-air Museum of Łódź Wooden Architecture
The collection of the Open-Air Museum of Łódź Wooden Architecture is young, it is just being created. The collections focus on the material culture of the inhabitants of Łódź, with particular emphasis on the heritage related to the working culture of city hybrid residents. The vast majority of exhibits come from the interwar period, although there are also those from the end of the XIX and beginning of the XX century. The range of collections is extensive – from ordinary items, such as those necessary in the kitchen: kitchen utensils and cutlery or utensils used to prepare meals, elements used exclusively for interior decoration – porcelain and plaster figurines, napkins, embroidered tablecloths or tapestries, which were so typical in Łódź houses, popular till 70s of the XX century. A large group consists of furniture – among them typical, pre-war kitchen cupboards and modest cabinets, as well as those specially ordered, made to order in a set: two oak beds, a wardrobe and a pier glass. The collection of the open-air museum also includes poorer furniture – a metal bed, a cot and a pre-war straw mattress and a wooden stool, or so-called ryczka. A separate group of furniture consists of boxes: coal hoppers and boxes for storing, for example, potatoes. In the group of exhibits intended for the hygiene, there are so-called waterworks, a sink with a shelf for towels, placed in kitchens, an enameled bidet, a shelf with containers for cleaning products, various sizes of buckets and bowls and a group of items related to laundry, such as tubs, tare etc. Some of the exhibits, for example, a gorget with Our Lady of Piekar testify close relationships between the inhabitants of Łódź and Silesia. However, when collecting collections, we pay special attention to items with Łódź provenance. They include products created at craft workshops in Łódź or created by Łódź residents themselves, such as an alarm clock from the J. Placek jewelry store at Brzezińska str., 10 or household utensils made of wire and hand-made curtains, drapes and bedspreads or embroidered tablecloths and napkins embroidered in Łódź houses or embroidery workshops. Among the collected objects, a large group consists of exhibits used to decorate kitchens in Łódź, such as canvas tapestries, decorative items hung on kitchen shelves, and various pockets for storing homemade trinkets – brushes, matches, etc.