The Time Regulation Institute (55 page)

Though I had spent my entire life in the company of timepieces, I have always been most fascinated by the pocket watch, and this must be why I had been searching for the secret of the building in such a form. First I imagined a round building very much like a pocket watch, with twelve pavilions, representing the twelve different hours of the day, circling this hall. But once
I'd tried to work out the idea on paper, I came to see it was impossible. Then I began thinking about how the watch might stand vertically. Stairs would provide access to a solid structure resembling a fat, swollen pocket watch mounted on four block pillars. Naturally the watch would have to have faces on both the front and the back, and windows would run down the sides of the building. So on each face of the building would be giant hands indicating the time, and in the middle of the facade would be a large door, accessed by stairs running up through one of the structural pillars.

But I had to give up on this idea as well, for Pakize was much too fond of it. I must admit that Pakize's taste had become a sort of gauge for me. I had begun to question everything for which she expressed interest or enthusiasm. And, truth be told, the final idea did in a way come from Pakize. When I told her about my first idea, she responded with her usual carefree smile:

“I already know about it. Last night I had a lamb sacrificed for the Blessed One. Its spiritual powers have come to our aid.”

Initially I was taken off guard.

“Which Blessed One?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

She calmly replied:

“Ah, my dear husband, you know—the Blessed One! Our prophet of a clock. You know it's in your aunt's house now! The one who comes to us in our hour of need!”

At first I thought I'd strangle her in a fit of rage, but then I suddenly embraced her. She had reminded me that the building didn't have to be constructed in the shape of a round timepiece, that the world had timepieces of all shapes and sizes—that the building could easily take on a rectangular shape, like any other building worthy of its name.

“My dear wife,” I said. “I owe every success in my life to you. And now, thanks to your intercession, the Blessed One has come to our rescue. How can I express my gratitude?”

In fact it wasn't at all difficult to design a long rectangular space in the shape of a grandfather clock. There was nothing we had to do, save place structures representing the hours of the day along the sides of the courtyard. The central hall would
no longer be harnessed to the startling and indeed impossible height of my initial idea of the pocket watch. At the top of the courtyard would be a round, clock-shaped construction representing twelve o'clock. Then four small pavilions on each side would lead down along the courtyard to the pavilion representing six o'clock, which would have three floors. It would really be quite easy to suspend walkways above the strips of lawn between the pavilions. The large central hall would be enclosed in glass. And on the face of each pavilion a Roman numeral would be displayed, from one to twelve, moving, from right to left, in a large ring, just as it would be on a clock. In the end I decided that instead of using the number twelve, I would make the front-gate pavilion, occupying that numeral's position, slightly larger than the others. To be sure to give the impression of a clock, I designed the front gate to resemble a dial. That said, my efforts to give a six-meter gate the appearance of a dial were truly exasperating. I would achieve nothing by putting yet more numerals along the sides of a normal rectangular shape. I needed a new idea. To this end I traveled as far afield as Bursa and Konya. And I visited all the mosques in Istanbul, looking closely at the many shapes of their doors, but they offered me nothing in return. Though all were beautifully crafted rectangles, they couldn't help me with my problem. Then one night the idea came to me when I spied a curtain hanging in the door to one of the smaller mosques in Istanbul: I would use curtains to represent the hour and minute hands! After this it was simply a question of deciding what time I wanted these curtains to indicate over the top of the entrance. It was easy to manage such details once I could envisage a door with two curtains pulled halfway open, like wings.

It was summer. As usual Ahmet wanted to spend his vacation at a summer school. But at my insistence he agreed to stay at home to help me. He knew that I was under pressure, but it was also the sort of project that appealed to him. After seeing me struggling for hours on end, he didn't have the heart to leave me stranded, even though he didn't quite understand what I was up to—or perhaps simply found it too absurd for words. For the first time since Emine's death, I felt truly happy. My son had not just forgiven me—he had undertaken to help me. I was overjoyed
to have him working by my side, giving deep consideration to each and every possibility, and wrestling with matters that had no bearing on his life, just for the challenge. It was a true representation of the virtue we know as hard work.

Work makes us pure and beautiful; it is our bond with the outside world and makes us who we are. But work can also take possession of our souls. No matter how meaningless and absurd the job, we unwittingly become its prisoner: from the moment we accept responsibility for its proper execution we can never escape its grip. Herein lies the greatest secret of man's fate and indeed the history of mankind.

In our first father-son discussion, we decided that the minute and hour hands shouldn't be positioned at the same height, which would create an overly simplistic and classic symmetry.

So father and son sat together for hours on end, fiddling with watches, searching for the position that would best suit the curtains that would serve to represent the hour and minute hands by the angle at which they hung to either side. We wanted an angle that would seem natural at first glance but also out of the ordinary. A person rushing in would be sufficiently struck by the originality of the design to want to turn around and examine—if only for a moment or two—the large bronze numbers set into the white marble border around the door. If nothing else, he should think, “Oh yes, I really must have a look at that on my way out.” We finally decided on forty-two minutes past four. In so doing we cleared the space for a six-meter gate. And then, a meter and a half above the lintel, we fixed two stone curtains at different heights, depending on the time we had selected. The empty space on the left would be slightly higher, but both sides, even the point closest to the stone curtain's edge, was just high enough for an average person to clear. To give a clearer indication of the hour and minute hands, we would place two thick, straight rods of engraved copper, or perhaps a copper-steel amalgam, in the folds of the stone curtains. A large pendulum would hang above the point where the curtains parted. This too would be forged of metal and sturdily affixed; as it swayed back and forth, it would represent the idea of regulation. And the awning
over the door would create enough shade to bring out the richness of the green lintel, the white marble, and the burnished copper. Or so Ahmet thought.

By the time we had agreed on all these details it was midnight. It was not without trepidation that I asked my son:

“Do you realize what time it is?”

“No, I don't,” he replied. “What's so important about it?”

“It's the hour of your birth . . .”

Suddenly he blushed and smiled. It was clear that he was pleased. But then he furrowed his brow and looked down at his feet. I understood from this that he was afraid I might be hurt by what he had to say, but he couldn't keep quiet for very long.

“Father,” he said. “There's no need to be overly sentimental. We're not yet at the point where we'd give up on each other over a difference in opinion. And I speak for all of us. But I do feel much more comfortable with how we are now.”

Perhaps it was the fear I felt hearing these words that led me to ask what was missing in the design. What was I going to do with this
720
-square-meter central hall? All night I racked my brains. Toward dawn I hit upon the idea of dividing the space with a balustrade like the one from the cemetery of the Kahvecibası Mosque that I still kept at home—then at least the hall would not seem quite so vast on first seeing it. But this wasn't enough. I needed something else to break up the space. I was flipping through one of the architecture magazines that Ahmet had borrowed from his classmates, when I chanced upon a few pictures that suggested the perfect solution. Halfway along the balustrade I would erect four large columns—as large as those enormous funnels that one saw on oil tankers facing north, east, south and west. But the hall's glass roof had no need of such pillars. Then came my moment of sublime inspiration. If we had to have pillars, then we would also have to have a second floor. A second floor would appear to reflect the Time Regulation Institute's very essence. We had founded the institute to generate employment for ourselves, and now, having created pillars to soften the look of the vast hall, we would give those pillars a purpose. In the early hours of the morning I was struck by the idea that allowed me to perfect the hall's
composition. The four pillars would stand in a row with a passageway running through them. To go from the right to the left side of the hall, you would pass first through the door in the Morning Pillar; then passing through the door in the Afternoon Pillar, you would climb the stairs inside the Evening Pillar; and when you at last descended through the Night Pillar, you found yourself on the other side of the hall. A visitor wishing to cross from the right side of the hall to the left would pass through Night, Evening, and Afternoon before finally exiting through the latticed door of the Morning Pillar.

After consulting Ahmet over breakfast, I was able to crystallize my idea. Ahmet reminded me of the minarets on the Üç Serefeli Mosque. Everyone knows how the muezzins
at Üç Serefeli walk up three separated sets of stairs without ever seeing one another. Our pillars would achieve the precise opposite.

People moving up and down either wrought-copper staircase would be visible, as they would be encased in glass. I now saw I could arrange them diagonally across the center of the hall to disrupt the traditional four leaf clover formation. Of course all the pillars—each one a little higher than the next—would be connected by little bridges so as to allow those moving up and down them to cross.

So far so good. But I still felt uneasy about the upper-floor lounge. Far from solving our original problem, the pillars and the balustrade had resulted in our transferring it to the upper floor. Once again past experience, or really something I had picked up from all those newspapers I'd read out of boredom in the coffeehouse during the years I was unemployed, came to my rescue. Rather than create another hall, why not a roof garden of the type seen on skyscrapers? After settling on the garden, I realized I could illuminate the hall with natural light by putting a glass roof over the top of the columns and running two long, thick panes of glass along the full length of the courtyard. True, we would already have ample gardens around the building and most skyscraper gardens are on the thirtieth floor and higher, but at least our friends would be able to see a few flowers when they took a break from work, and if nothing else second-floor windows overlooking the courtyard would let
in some natural light. I decided to landscape the garden in the shape of a clock, just as I had done with the garden at the front gate and the one located at the six o'clock pavilion. There would be just one difference—the roof garden would be adorned with a bust of Ahmet Zamanı. Thus our hall would be a fusion of both the traditional and the modern. Indeed this hall went on to become our crowning achievement.

I determined that only four of our pavilions would have more than one floor. The front pavilion with its large gate represented twelve o'clock, while its two neighboring pavilions, representing one and eleven o'clock, respectively, would have two floors each. Then I envisioned the twelve o'clock pavilion's counterpart, the six o'clock pavilion, with three floors. I left the first floor of this pavilion open and undivided, just one large room graced by two broad windows that let in light from both sides. Having designed the second floor as two overlapping circles, I thought it only natural to divide the top floor into separate rooms as in the other pavilions. But instead of designing internal stairs leading from one floor to the next, I arranged for the stairs leading up to the second floor to come from the five o'clock pavilion, with those leading up to the third floor originating from the seven o'clock pavilion. Thus two sets of stairs encased in glass—one relatively shorter than the other, which was less direct—connected the six o'clock pavilion to its neighboring pavilions. And its ground floor was linked directly to the main hall.

In time these rather architecturally redundant innovations—created as an homage to Dr. Mussak, though perhaps I had in mind the allegorical house that my dear friend Dr. Ramiz had used to explain the workings of the human mind and its subconscious when I was undergoing psychoanalysis—became as celebrated as the pillars I'd designed for the main hall; and as I mentioned earlier I was made an honorary member of the International Society of Architects and was even awarded some of its medals, and if my memory serves me, I was in fact awarded medals from two different foreign governments.

Needless to say, the first floor of the six o'clock pavilion was
to be our conference room. And the smaller rooms of overlapping circles on the floor above would be used for smaller meetings. The top floor was reserved for Sabriye Hanım, as a tribute to her complex involvement with the public. Indeed there was no other way to free ourselves of our friend's relentless curiosity or her determination to subject all our affairs to needless scrutiny.

It should come as no surprise that I designed the overlapping circular rooms on the second floor to represent a clock's inner wheels and cogs. I also designed the large round room in the four o'clock pavilion to suggest the minute hand on the face of a clock. So in the end I paid the full price for my addendum of the words “inside and out” to the competition conditions—this despite the fact that I had added these words only to challenge Halit Ayarcı and force him into an awkward situation, only to be forced to invent a compendium of absurd architectural innovations to suggest the inside and outside of a clock.