Although the history of Łódź goes back into the past, its actual development and later boom were connected with the 19^th century and the foundation - by the authorities of the Kingdom of Poland - of the system of weaver and cloth settlements. Beginning with the 1820s they were located along the regular Piotrków Tract. In this way, the New Town, and later on the settlements of Łódka and Nowa Łódka came into being. At first production was based upon hadicraft workshops, housedd within the family abodes of the Saxon, Czech Great Poland and Silesian colonists. An important fact was the foundation of the water-factory locations - the several-dozen-hactare parcels at the northern bank of the Jasień, a rivulette flowing along the southern border of Łódka. It was here that the first larger manufactures and mechanical linen-cotton mills were located. It was in one of them that, in 1838, Ludwik Geyer put the first steam-engine in Łódź.

The few surviving buildings testify of the appearance of those oldest enterprises. The so called White Factory and the Kopisch Bleachery in ul. bpa W. Tymienieckiego are particularly precious monuments of the early phase of the industrial development of our city. Others - like K. F. Wendisch's and T. Grohmann's weaving houses - have been known to us but from some old pictures and photographs, since they were levelled as a result of the changing technologies, the rise of new, large firms, sometimes the lack of understanding for their value.

The first industrial objects were built in the Classical manner. Their exteria were austere, with smooth, plastered walls without any detail. Ca the mid-19^th century the white walls came to be replaced with a redbric face. Karol Scheibler's weaving-house, erected in 1865/68 in Wodny Rynek, was a forecast of such changes in industrial architecture. It was the first to be supplied with the brick-work elevation as well as the iron framework of the storey-holding supports. Thence the new style was adopted in the industrial architecture. Dozens of huge red-brick buildings endowed with towers and detail reminiscent of the medieval defence architecture were erected. The influence of those 'industrial strongholds' upon the image of the city can be felt up till the present day.