The latest permanent exhibition ‘Last Summer’ at the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź tells the story of rest and leisure in the 1930s. A special arrangement has been prepared in a historic villa built in the Świdermajer style. The furniture and accessories collected here are an attempt to answer the questions: How was leisure time spent at the summer resort years ago? What kind of leisure activities did summer visitors enjoy? How were the interiors decorated? Interestingly, in addition to viewing the leisure-related objects, you can also use them!
Want to play croquet or serso? Sitting on the veranda overlooking the park? Or do you fancy sitting in a 1930s armchair and reading an archive newspaper?
on 30 August, the historic interiors of the villa on the grounds of the museum reopened to the public. When you enter the villa, you can step into the shoes of a summer visitor and experience the various forms of recreation which our great-grandparents used to enjoy.
The exhibition tells the story of a fictional family of wealthy Łódź residents spending the summer of 1939 in a rented villa in Ruda Pabianicka. Before the Second World War, Ruda was a popular holiday resort. Rich Lodz industrialists had their summer residences there. The Muza cinema operated there, there were horse races and dansings, you could go boating and enjoy the healthy forest air.
No photographs of the rooms of the Rudz villas have survived, so we had to use our imagination. Books and memoirs about summer resorts in Ruda, Kolumna ,as well asin Świder and Otwock, and consultations with an expert on house furnishings in the inter-war periodwere helpful ,” says Magda Gonera, curator of the exhibition and head of the CMWŁ Education Department.
What makes this exhibition different from other museum exhibitions? Here you can touch the objects! Most of them are original, purchased at auctions and in antique shops. Some are replicas recreated from hard-to-find or damaged pre-war originals. Visitors will thus be able to see what it is like to use objects made or designed 100 years ago.
It is an exhibition that ‘comes alive’ thanks to visitors. Here you can play pre-war social flirting, chess and board games, embroider on a tambourine, make a flower bouquet, play with a dolls’ house, sit on the veranda full of plants and listen to the sounds of nature or try on clothes and accessories that were fashionable in the inter-war period. And on warm days, have a picnic in front of the villa: play a game of skittles or lie in a deckchair with a book.
The Last Summer exhibition is a real treasure trove of knowledge about leisure and leisure activities in the 1930s. But not only. It is a paradise for fans of old design and design – the villa’s interiors have been furnished with original furniture and objects from the period (toys, serviettes and tableware, antique kilims and furnishings). Lovers of old architecture and Świdermajer-type villas will also find valuable information here.
The exhibition is complemented by a “contemporary room” full of facts and curiosities about the development of tourism in Poland, popular ways of travelling and fashionable pre-war resorts. There is also a cinema room where you can watch films about architecture and spas in the 20th century between the wars, and a reading room on the veranda.
It is impossible to ignore the history of the villa itself, which provides a natural setting for the exhibition. The villa came to the museum in 2008 – it was moved from Ruda Pabianicka, from Scaleniowa Street. In the 1930s, it belonged to the factory owner Szai Światłowski, who bought it for his wife, who was ill with consumption diseases.
For the purposes of the exhibition, we researched the history of the villa in detail. We managed to reach its inhabitants and solve many riddles related to the history of the building. You can read all about it during the tour ,” explains Marcin Antczak of the CMWŁ Library and Archives Department.
The story of the fictional Piechowicz family, presented in the interiors of the villa, is a complement to other microhistories told at the exhibition ‘Łódź microhistories. Human microhistories’. This method of narration allows visitors to ‘find themselves’ in the middle of events and feel like one of the protagonists. In addition, the opportunity to touch and use the objects guarantees a multi-sensory experience. But the exhibition can also be visited in the classic way, without stepping into the role of a visitor at the summerhouse. All information is also presented in the form of texts, graphics, photos and audiovisual material.
Curators and set designers: Magdalena Gonera and Filip Appel
Content consultant: Marcin Siedlarek
Collaboration: Marcin Antczak (history of the villa), Filip Finke (patination), Andrzej Jankowski (queries), Daniel Okrasa (replica costumes), Marcin Turski (translation of texts into English), Joanna Więckowska (editing and proofreading), Marzena Wiśniak (texts), Szymon Włoch (editing and proofreading of English texts), Izabela Żak (voice on the telephone), Przemysław Żak (technical adaptation of the gramophone, radio and telephone)
Coordinator: Amadeusz Urbanek
Visual identity, sound, reprints: Filip Appel
source: Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź
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