Karol Scheibler's Chapel in Łódź

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The chapel of Karol Scheibler on Old Evangelical - Augsburg Cemetery on Ogrodowa Street is the architectural masterpiece of old Łódź.

The monuments of architecture are the most valuable heritage of our city, the witnesses of its worldwide unique development in nineteenth century. In between objects of outstanding value there should be placed the mausoleum of Karol Scheibler on Old Evangelical - Augsburg Cemetery on Ogrodowa Street 43.

Karol Scheibler (1820 - 1881) began with his activity a new epoch in the history of industrial Łódź and placed it in between most known cities of textile industry in Europe. He created a huge industrial empire on Priest's Mill (Księży Młyn).

Taking care of the growth of industry, he always remembered about his fellow-citizens. Karol Scheibler himself and after his death widowed Anna Scheibler, maiden name Werner, son Karol Wilhelm, daughter Matylda and son-in-law Edward Herbst bestowed huge amount of money upon erecting the buildings that would be useful to the city: schools, hospitals (on Milionowa Street and Children's Hospital named for Janusz Korczak), churches (amongst them Jesuits church, archicathedral of Łódź). They were also always eager to support different charitable actions.

After Karol Scheibler's death, his wife Anna Scheibler decided to celebrate his memory by erecting mausoleum-like chapel.. In the years 1885-1888 according to Varsovian architects Edward Lilpop and Józef Dziekoński design there was built a monument that amazed contemporary people.

Newspapers in Warsaw wrote, "the chapel is a monument executed on greatest costs concerning our country", or "this is uncommon work of architecture, designed with great taste and executed with unusual care." The architecture of the building was based on best examples of French and German Gothic. The object got a slender contour, finished with openwork stone tower. Best materials were used to raise the chapel and most famous Warsaw and Łódź firms were employed.

Artistic shape of chapel and quality of its realization caused that the true masterpiece of Neo-Gothic architecture came into being. In the whole Europe there were raised only several buildings that equal the quality of Łódź mausoleum. In the crypt of the chapel there were buried remains Karol Scheibler and in the following years successively of other members of the family, in between them the widowed Anna Scheibler.

The history of the chapel after 1945 year was tragic, like of the whole area of the Old Evangelical - Augsburg Cemetery, because of unpunished devastations and robberies. The crypt got profaned; the rests of dead men and the coffins were destroyed. The condition of the chapel was turning worse with each decade. The Conservatory authority became interested in the monument no sooner than in the second half of seventies of XX century. Then the detailed inventory was executed, windows walled up, the object symbolically surrounded by fence. Despite all of that devaluation of the chapel continued.

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