Centre for Science and Technology EC1

Appropriately located in a former power station, the EC1 Science and Technology Centre is now an enormous hands-on museum exploring principally physics and the generation of power. Additionally, the former cooling tower is now a viewing platform with panoramic views of the city.

Centre for Science and Technology EC1

With many Łódź museums, you get two for the price of one. In this case, this huge science museum is crowned with the cooling tower observation point, which gives panoramic views of the city (and maybe even the surface of the sun). Fittingly, this former source of electricity in Łódź is focused on the technologies around power supply, as well as activities to explore the laws of physics. Biology and chemistry don’t get much space here.

As with the factory complexes in Łódź, the itself building is impressive. There’s a replica of the original boiler and control room. While the first section of the museum is devoted to industrial machinery, with interactive touchscreen information points, the next section gives way to a large arm full of fun, physical activities that explore different principles. See below for highlights.

Industrial sculptures

What To See In the Centre for Science and Technology EC1

Over five massive floors, this former power station starts with the history of power and electricity in the city – exemplified by the huge boiler that was originally housed here and an interactive power station control room – before moving through fun physics experiments and activities, and smaller areas for the other sciences. You finish with a panoramic view of Łódź from the top of the water cooling tower.

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What To Expect When Visiting the Centre for Science and Technology EC1

The museum is split into a number of distinctive zones, which you’ll find on the map given to you at reception. These offer the possibility of taking different routes through the museum, based on how much you’d like to spend. You might decide to speed through the earlier stages which, though interactive, are a bit drier than the activities in the second half. There’s also a convenient cafe area on the second floor if you feel like you’re flagging.

I’ll walk through some of the highlights in the following sections:

The boiler room

The Power Plant

The very start of the museum is a little confusing and underwhelming. You enter with a wristband through a gate and then follow a corridor past the toilets, a shop, lockers, and cloakroom.

Finally, still on the ground floor, you’ll find a handful of interactive exhibits. But the museum itself starts on the first floor, with a cutaway of the huge boiler that used to power the city from this building. The first part of the museum explains the science of power through the history of the building itself.

The interactive machines take a bit of time to get used to and you’ll need to scan your wristband to use most of them, but they somewhat systematically work through various scientific principles, often with engaging personal experiments.

You can walk into parts of the boiler and there are games, which the staff will help you with.

The Machine Room

The Machine Room

The building has a nice open plan feel that helps you navigate and see the larger elements from different angles.

The Machine Room, on the second floor, has various pieces of industrial equipment, including a pumping station and turbo-generator. These large exhibits are also a feature of the grounds around the museum, with cranes and pulleys and other structures forming a kind of industrial sculpture park.

The second floor is broken up into different areas, with a corridor of labs and a spherical cinema. Again, there’s plenty of interactivity.

You’ll also find the large cafeteria on this floor. And there’s a small, easy-to-miss sublevel down from the dining area with a compressor room and balloon pumping experiment.

The Control Room

The Control Room

Channel your inner Homer Simpson, on the next floor up, with a full simulation of a working power plant. You can try your hand at managing the entire distribution of electricity in Łódź, with a dizzying array of switches and buttons. There are exhaustive displays of transformers and the other hardware of energy generation.

Science experiments

Knowledge of Civilisation

Still on the third floor, you leave behind the electricity and power-themed part of the museum and walk up a ramp to a whole wing devoted to the more theoretical principles of physics, with fun, interactive experiments each focusing on different aspects of scientific knowledge.

Kundt’s Tube

The Acoustics Room

This corner of the museum is tucked to the side and easy to miss. It has all kinds of noisy, interactive devices and musical instruments. Kundt’s Tube is fun for measuring aspects of sound and there’s an anechoic chamber. Plus, the room outside has beehives with cameras, so you can see up close the busy activity as they come and go.

Movement / Fluids / Aerodynamics

Movement / Fluids / Aerodynamics

This stretch of the museum probably offers the most fun. There is an air hockey table, paper planes, and a wobbly bridge. Every day activities are explored to explain the laws of physics. It’s much like an adventure playground and, for kids, this is where the museum is the most engaging.

Optics

Optics

A few things were out of order when I visited but there are also plenty of cool exhibits in this room too, including a laser printer, prisms, an exploration of the Northern Lights, and a Van der Graff generator. The staff are very hands on with helping you get the most out of the machines.

The Cooling Tower

The Cooling Tower

There was an excellent temporary exhibition about microscopy when I visited, with incredible photographs of seeds and tiny insects. This is also your first glimpse of the huge Cooling Tower, which you’ll return to at the very end of the museum. You can also enter the base of the Cooling Tower outside the museum itself.

Deep space objects

Microworld

The fourth and fifth floors of the museum are fairly small and offer a brief look at biology and chemistry, as well as a few exhibits around the extra-terrestrial. There’s an excellent display that lets you see images and a map of deep space objects above Łódź at different times of the year.

These floors also give another overview of the whole museum, as you can look back down at the boiler and other sections from above.

View from the observation deck

The Observation Deck

Finally, you walk the spiral path around the edges of the Cooling Tower (or take the elevator) to the circular viewing platform 40m up. This gives a panoramic view of the city and, when I visited, the friendly guide showed me the surface of the sun through a carefully filtered telescope.

The deck is open during the summer months, but may be closed if the weather is bad.

Map of the EC1 campus

How To Visit the Centre for Science and Technology EC1

The Centre for Science and Technology EC1 is near the Łódź Fabryczna train station and is served from a number of bus stops. The closest is Tuwima – Kilińskiego (EC1 Centr. Nauki). Use this official Łódź timetable to plan your journey. The whole area is heavily signposted with maps once you reach the EC1 campus.

The Centre for Science and Technology EC1 address: Targowa 1/3, 90-022 Łódź, Poland

Most attractions at EC1 are open as follows:

• Tuesday-Sunday: 10am-6pm
• Monday: closed

Full price tickets cost 27zł on Tuesday to Friday and 34zł at the weekend. Reduced tickets are 21zł on weekdays and 26zł on Saturday and Sunday. There are also various activities and screenings at the museum’s spherical cinema. See the museum price list for details (Polish only).

You can also buy a combined ticket to the Centre for Science and Technology EC1 and Orientarium ZOO Łódź for 85zł.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find the official Centre for Science and Technology website very useful. I couldn’t get the English language function to work and there is limited information about public holidays, last entry times, or accessibility.

Similarly, the advanced ticket site was also in Polish and I’ve found it doesn’t work well with every internet browser. You can check it to make sure there are still places left and then just turn up in person and pay on the door. The museum staff were friendly when I visited and helped navigate the different prices.

All times and prices are subject to change, and opening hours may be different during public holidays.

Although the exhibition has a lot of child-friendly displays, it is not recommended for under 5s. Instead, the partner museum Ulica Żywiołów – The Street of the Elements has been deliberately designed for younger children.

The Science Museum cafe

Tips For Visiting Centre for Science and Technology EC1

• Despite the lack of English-language material on the website, the majority of displays in the museum have translated text.
• The museum helpfully provides differently timed trails, starting at 1.5 hours. I moved through it quickly and was still in there for 3 hours. So, the bulk of the day is quite possible.
• Most of the exhibits are accompanied by display screens, giving full context. These are a bit hard to work out at first, but highly informative once you work it out. It’s a good idea to pick up one of the trail maps, as these will give you an overview and help you make the most of your time.
• There is a cloakroom on the ground floor, once you are past the entry gates. However, it was shut when I visited on Sunday morning. Instead, there were lockers which required a 1zł coin. So bring some loose change with you!
• The museum has the usual policy of no flash or tripods regarding photography and filming. Otherwise, it is encouraged.
• This museum was largely designed with kids in mind. Though some areas are a little dry, there are large sections with energetic, interactive exhibits. For younger children, consider the neighbouring Ulica Żywiołów – The Street of the Elements instead.
• Accessibility needs seem well addressed here. The walkways are wide, with lots of lifts and ramps. There are rest areas all over the museum. It can be quite cool inside, so bring an extra layer. And, it’s very big, so wear comfortable footwear.
• There are water fountains throughout with a reminder to rehydrate. There is also a large and welcoming cafe partway through the museum. I definitely recommend breaking up your visit with a rest and a hearty meal.
• There was a gift shop selling science-related toys and books, but it was closed when I visited on a Sunday morning.
• You can pay with cash or cards throughout the museum.
• There are toilets all over the building, which are always fully accessible.
• The museum is designed for lots of busy visitors, so parts of it can feel a bit empty if you go too early in the day. Similarly, the ground floor exhibits at the start of the museum are a bit random. The museum doesn’t really get going until you go upstairs.
• There are helpful staff all around the museum if you need information about anything.