Freedom Square is the central square in Lodz, shaped like a
regular octagon. Received its modern name in 1918 in honor of
Poland's independence. Until 1918 it was called the New Market.
Freedom Square appeared in 1823 in a large village, which at that
time was Lodz. The city authorities decided to turn the New Market
into the city's main square. Soon a tavern was opened here,
construction of important administrative buildings began. This was
the beginning of the construction of the town hall and church. The
city market was located in the center of the square.
The
development of the plan for the construction of buildings on the
square was undertaken by the architect Boniface Witkovski. The town
hall was completed in 1827, and the Holy Trinity Church was opened a
year later. In 1830, the first stone building in ód was built on the
square, where a pharmacy was opened. The new market has truly become
the center of city life. In 1888 the Church of the Holy Trinity was
demolished due to a design error. Three years later, a new church
appeared on the same site, which has survived to this day.
When trams began to run on the New Market in 1898, it was decided to
abolish the market in favor of an elegant town square. In 1918, the
New Market was renamed Freedom Square after the restoration of
Poland's independence. In 1930, a monument to Tadeusz Kosciuszko was
erected on the square.
Currently, Freedom Square is a
favorite meeting place for citizens, the center of the city's
cultural and social life.
The square was laid out in 1823 as the market square of the "Nowe
Miasto" drapery settlement, founded at that time, at the intersection of
the Piotrków route running from north to south and ul. Średnia (now ul.
Pomorska and ul. Legionów) running from east to west. It was given the
shape of a regular octagon. To distinguish it from the original market
square of Łódź, located about 450 m to the north, it was called the New
Town Square.
In 1863, the northern section of the Piotrków route,
from the New Town Square to the Old Market Square, was renamed ul.
Nowomiejska, while the street facing west was named Konstantynowska. The
"New Town" was surrounded on four sides by the following streets:
Zachodnia, Północna, Wschodnia and Południe.
In the center of the
market there was a city market. In 1827, the Town Hall and the
Evangelical Church of St. Trinity (the first representative buildings of
Łódź). In 1857, the building of the county school (now the
Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum) was built. In 1898, tram
communication reached the New Town Square, and the marketplace was
transformed into a representative square of the city.
In 1918,
when Poland regained its independence, the market square was renamed
Plac Wolności. In 1930, a statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko was erected in
the middle of the square. After the annexation of Łódź by the Third
Reich, the German occupation authorities of Łódź demolished the monument
on November 11, 1939, and renamed the square to Freiheitsplatz, and in
1940 to Deutschlandplatz.
The monument was rebuilt in the same
shape in 1960.
The square is a reference point in the numbering
of Łódź streets. In 2015 Plac Wolności was declared a monument of
history.