The triangular Market Square in Łowicz

Most market squares are shaped like a square or rectangle, less oftemn they have a shape of a trapeze. But there is only one Market Square shaped like a triangle in the entire Poland. It can be found in Łowicz – a town that we mostly associate with a jam factory located here.

Łowicz is located in the łódzkie region and is the capital of the county. This small town upon the river Bzura is one of a kind thanks to its triangular Market Square. It would be enough to say that only two other cities in Europe have come to a similar solution – Paris and Bonn.

Just to be clear, in Łowicz thee is also an old, square-shaped Market Square. It is completed by the triangular one – the New Market Square, as well as the Przyrynek. How come there’s so many of them and why one of them is shaped like a triangle?

The multiplicity of Market Squares is nothing new. Since the middle ages, stalls were thickly built in the centres of big cities, that’s also where the modern, economic definition of the word „Market Square” came from.

This was the place of meetings, but mostly trading. Stal owners were selling foods and skin products. Blacksmiths were creating horseshoes and sickles, at some stalls you could even ask for fresh meat. The bigger the town and demand, the larger the market square.

But have you ever wondered why the market square is triangular? The medieval architectural layout that survived to modern times, was created in1405 and still makes tourists ask questions.

One of the frontages of the New Market Square used to be created by a small river. Today there’s nothing left behind it, but that was the thing that forced the creation of this particular edge of the Market Square in a specific way. Two other edges were created by the architectural layout.