He was just like swimming on blue clouds,
He is quietly gone but not forgotten,
He left a blue fire behind him…
He was the most innocent of the world… Were you real? Otherwise have you come into our dreams quietly? If I could reach you, I would say “Please do not wake us up my son” “Please do not go” Allow us to continue the dream where you are there. Let us swim on blue clouds together with you…! You are gone quietly as no one could reach you.
Onur Yaser Can… he applied to my company to be hired as architecture student when he was 26. I answered the door by chance… I have never forgotten this, it seemed as if a gleam of deep blue light filled him from inside. I have had a lot of application meetings with a lot of applicants before that day. They were very young people as well but Onur Yaser was different from them.
I realized that I had run into a skillful young person, expressing together both responsibility and self-confidence. He was as self-confident as he was modest about details concerning business, architecture and etc., I was together with a young man who had passed all examinations about design (Project) and wanted to build buildings sensitive to the scale of nature and ancient civilizations. He could assure the interviewer of his ability to successfully complete what he was told to do during the application meeting. He was not only a student but also a competent architect. Yet, he got his diploma, from METU, six months after he was hired.
He was friendly, a confidant and a heartthrob amongst employees in the office. Everyone had feelings that included love and confidence when they were with Onur. Our secretary usually cooked for him, another person gave him his/her umbrella and said, “it is rainy, you will get wet”. They let him to smoke in a room near the balcony but not on balcony to protect him from the chill (as if it were a secret from me)… I didn’t say anything, but could not help to notice.
He had to prepare the implementation project of 6000m2 Directorate General building whose pre-design project was already prepared. A lot of fine detail solution and research was needed and it had to be approved as soon as possible. I realized that I could deliver the Project to Onur Yaser at the end of our meeting. I have never hesitated. He was participating in his lessons in university while he was preparing the project; he was bending over backwards to compensate for this time period that he worried interfered with the progress. In fact, he did not know that his existence could not trouble someone. I will never forget the way his eyes, which looked like they were asking a question or waiting for an answer, lit up the environment where he was. Onur Yaser always came to the office on time and he did not allow any private matters to detain him during working hours. For example, I heard him answer his phone and say, “I am in Office, I am working” if his friends called him at work and he shut the ring off as soon as possible. Such a respect and finesse towards the business environment could not be taught to anyone. Only such a polite person already possessing these traits could behave with this consciousness.
If he was delayed due to weather conditions like snow and rain, then he seemed frantic while he was running into office. He used to hang his parka and go toward his desk as if the most important thing in the world was to have high potential focus on his work in 10 minutes.
He was an diligent architect, paying attention to the project with all the details, putting every change and detail into the necessary place within the project, improving the project in communication with all project principles, as well as carrying out demands of the administration as fast as possible and submitting alternative solutions.
Our Project was well received due to his contribution to the interior and exterior aesthetics of the building during the three-dimensional design period. He provided research and interviews faster than an experienced architecture when we need more information or a new detail was on our agenda. He was able to establish an esteemed conversation where the interviewee submitted all required information to him seriously.
I have worked with a lot of architects during the last 20 years of my professional life but I only admired Onur Can. He was just new in our profession. He was so young. There were supposed to be a lot of questions and subjects he could not answer yet. However, this was not the case. In my opinion, he was born with experience in our profession. He was so multi-talented. In a short time period he would append the signature on quite big projects. Not only in Turkey, in another countries as well. We used to admire his sketches and alternatives he created.
I told him that I would write his name under a project when it was completed, “I did not get my diploma yet, no” he said with his all modesty. I had his name written on the part of “project designers”. I realized that it was not important whether his name was there or not. He would append his signature on a bigger project somehow. He was aware of his talents.
His hand was a magic hand. He was born to touch the world and make it beautiful. He was born to fill the world up with blue light. But he had to go. He left a blue fire behind him. We suffer great hardship with the blue fire that he left. I am sure that people, who had a chance to know him, will live with the haplessness of suffering.
No, it was never thought that Onur would commit suicide. He was a young man with a lot of friends, people loved him; people were dying to have a conversation with him. His friends used to call him at break time in the office and they waited to see him for an hour. There were always a lot of his friends waiting for him quietly in front of our office door. In my opinion, the most important thing is not to be loved but to be able to love someone else. Unconditional love without judgment, like that of a child, could be seen clearly in his eyes. Those deep blue, smiling, loving, wondering eyes…
I would have liked him to work for our office after he got his diploma. He told me that he wanted to live in a calm seaside city and get a master’s degree. I heard that he had gone to Istanbul. I didn’t see him again. Unfortunately, I will not see him again. I will be missing him, as everyone will. I look hopefully at the youth with a slim and tall body, wavy hair, stubble, and hovel clothes on the streets, buses and minibuses. I do not know why… Do I wait for a miracle? I hurt so badly in my heart. I damn everything made us without Onur.
I would like to conclude with a poem written sister of Onur Yaser Can for him.
Freedom chill blues are frozen now
Everywhere is rainy, everywhere is soaked soil.
Half of my life, my first love, where did you fly to
Even cats cry for you, all words in the world are exhausted.
You stole me away,
Mired down something, missing.
I shall add smells, love you left at the end of the kite
Let me release it into sky, far deeps…
Par me
Greetings to the day I will kiss you again
Greetings to villages.
Architect / Optima Company Manager
Caglayan Efendioglu OZ
The text was written by Caglayan Efendioglu OZ, it was published on November - December 2010 bulletin in TMMOB Chamber of Architects Ankara Branch.
