The W-70 system quickly became common (it was first used at the beginning of the 1970s in the Nad Potokiem and Ustronie settlements in Radom), but, interestingly, Maria and Kazimierz never designed a single house with the use of their technology. In the following years, they perfected and modernised it in cooperation with the Building Research Institute, but the settlements were designed by other architects. Between 1977 and 1979, the Piechotkas designed a variation of the W-70 system for Algeria (at the time, many Polish architects worked in the Near East and in North Africa).
At the beginning of the 1980s, Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka retired. In 1984, the Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Art requested their cooperation in the ‘Jewish architecture and art’ government project. It was a remarkable chance to return to their research on the wooden synagogue architecture from more than 30 years ago. During the next two decades, the Piechotkas wrote five books on the topic of sacral Jewish architecture (the first publication on the topic, Wooden Synagogues, was published in 1957, followed by the English edition two years later). Today, the Piechotkas’ works, repeatedly republished and translated into many languages, are part of the canon of Jewish cultural heritage literature.
Written in Polish by Anna Cymer, Feb 2018, translated by Patryk Grabowski, Apr 2018