In a cafe on napkins, in the studio on tracing paper, at home on a piece of paper torn from a notebook. With a pencil, pen and felt-tip pen. Kazimierz Maciej Piechotka drew for pleasure and to collect his thoughts. The architect's drawings lay in a drawer for years, now 200 of them can be seen at the exhibition in Bielany.
Kazimierz Maciej Piechotka was a fundamental figure for Bielany. Together with his wife Maria, also an architect, they designed the largest housing estates after the war: Bielany I, Bielany II and Bielany III, Słodowiec and Aleja Zjednoczenia. A fragment of the first one, at Skalbmierska Street, is still unofficially called Piechotków. The exhibition “Kazimierz Maciej Piechotka. Drawings from a drawer” will be held in Local Activity Place at Kasprowicza 14i.e. in a building also designed by the Piechotki family.
They went from the bottom of the chest of drawers to the exhibition
The architect never boasted about his works. He carefully hid them at the very bottom of the chest of drawers. In 2008, at the instigation of his wife Maria, selected drawings were presented for the first time at an exhibition organized by the Association of Polish Architects (SARP) on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Piechotka couple's work. After a dozen or so years, there is an opportunity to see them again. The drawings were selected by the architects' son, Michał.
According to the organizers, the exhibition will feature almost 200 works divided into several topics, including: Bielany, architecture, plants, abstraction and landscapes. The opening will take place on Wednesday November 6 at 6 p.m. “At the meeting we will host Michał Piechotka and Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner, editor-in-chief of the publication 'Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka. Memories of architects'. Edyta Barucka, an art historian and one of the first people to whom the Piechotka couple decided to show the drawings, will talk about the drawings,” they inform organizers – MAL Kasprowicza 14 and Bielańska Fototeka.
Who was Kazimierz Maciej Piechotka?
Kazimierz Maciej Piechotka graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, and completed part of his studies during the occupation as part of secret classes. He was a soldier of the Home Army, a participant in the Warsaw Uprising (Agaton platoon, Fist battalion). From 1949, he and his wife Maria operated as an author's company, focusing mainly on residential architecture. They co-created prefabrication systems. For many years they documented Jewish wooden architecture (synagogues and synagogues). They lived in Bielany all their lives.
Main photo source: Collections of the Piechotka family / mat. organizer