Mural for the 90th Anniversary of the Water Supply and Sewerage Company

The mural for the 90th anniversary of the Zakład Wodociągów i Kanalizacji (Water Supply and Sewerage Company) has adorned the wall of the company's headquarters at ulica Wierzbowa 52 in Łódź since 2015. The photorealistic composition reproduces an archival photograph from 1927, showing twenty-four workers building a sewerage canal at ulica Pienista.

Photograph selected from ZWiK archives

The authors reviewed several hundred archival photographs from the company and selected a frame from 1927 showing a work brigade building a sewerage canal. On this basis, a painted composition was created reproducing the working conditions from nearly a hundred years ago.

Three-person team and two weeks of work

The mural was directed by Piotr Chrzanowski, illustrator and graphic designer, graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, and he worked alongside Michał Chrzanowski and Katarzyna Zielińska. The three-person team painted with acrylic paint for approximately two weeks, covering a wall approximately 25 metres long.

Sixth mural on Wierzbowa

The work joined other murals on ulica Wierzbowa, creating a cluster of street art connected with the history of Łódź's water supply. Eight years later, for the company's centenary, another mural by the same company was created, by Tomasz Jędrczak entitled Uśmiechnij się (Smile), dedicated to engineer Stefan Skrzywań, though this is a separate work.

Other murals in Łódź

A similar atmosphere of open-air mural galleries is created by the M-CITY mural on ulica Tuwima, though executed in a completely different, stencil technique.

Practical information

• Address: ul. Wierzbowa 52, Łódź.
• Getting there: bus and tram services; the mural is located on the wall of the ZWiK headquarters.
• What to see: a photorealistic scene of canal construction from 1927, part of a group of murals on this street.