EC1 Lodz Foundation was created in December 2008 in order to promote construction of the New Center of Łódź.  The project of the New Center of Łódź assumes that the mostly dead area, of 90ha, located in the area surrounded by Tuwima Sienkiewicza Narutowicza Kopcińskiego streets, around the EC1 thermal power plant and the Łodz Fabryczna railway station, will undergo an operation on an open city. As a result, a completely new infrastructure, connected mostly to culture, public transport and services, will emerge there. The foundation aims to create the ideology which will result in the entire project of construction of the New Centre of Łodz having greater sense than just infrastructural. It is an opportunity to create the identity of Łodz citizens, basing on new spatial and functional assumptions.

Łodz identity was referred to by the 'Parliamentary Street' campaign, initiated by the foundation, where MEPs, together with young architects from Łodz, designed elevations of tenement houses on a non-existing street. They created imagined elevations of tenement houses, representing what the MEPs are most proud of. The project started under the patronage of Jacek Saryusz-Wolski. The final effect was exhibited in the European Parliament in Brussels. The project reminded that Łodz, lacking a defined city centre, had to regard its main street – Piotrkowska – as one. At last, the centre of the city will be easily recognizable – it will be the Kobro Square. Around it, the urban tissue will grow, combining tradition and modernity.

In order to respect the tradition, symbolised by written words, the foundation creates ‘5 in Lodz’ Library. Celebrities from around the world – people of different cultures, religions and ideology – will send 5 favourite books each to the library. Selected from their private libraries, these books shaped their beliefs and ideology, made them choose their own paths in life, they relate to their passion or have some other personal meaning. Each set of five books will be packed in a transparent box, which in turn will become a brick in the wall of the library.

EC1 Lodz Foundation will also supervise the process of production and distribution of the EC1 jeans which bring back the tradition of Łodz textile industry and the legend of Ben Lichtenstein – the creator of Wrangler jeans, who was born in Łodz. Each pair of trousers, made of natural cotton and dyed with indigo, has its own individual number, which in turn makes it a kind of a donation certificate for the construction of the New Centre of Łodz. These are the trousers which build culture – the entire income from sales will be used to support the institution which distributed these jeans. EC1 jeans are packed in an original box whose look will refer to the image of Łodz factory. It won the main award at the Art of Packaging 2007 national contest in Poznan.

Since July 2009, the foundation publishes the ‘EC1 Arttraction Railway Journal’, a free of charge journal which is given out in trains of the Łódź-Warsaw line. It is to inform its readers about details of the New Centre of Łódź project. The first issue was released on 23 July 2009. At the same time, a great Countdown, initiated by the foundation, started. It counts down the time remaining to closing the Łódź Fabryczna station and the actual start of construction works at the new city centre. The number which symbolises days left to the moment when the first shovel is turned at the site is to be seen on the carriages of the Łódź-Warsaw line, and it is getting smaller every day.

EC1 Lodz Foundation was created by Andrzej Waczak, the co-owner of the ATLAS group, and Atlas Sztuki gallery.