Cemeteries are the places where yesterday and today, lover and the loved one, one who goes to eternity and the mortal one waiting, death and life meet. Cemeteries are balance of eternity and world as Elmalılı Hamdi says, “… feeling the sense of the afte rlife and returning to life with that awakening…” (1), the balance of the here after and the world is cemeteries.
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And one of them is Sahrayicedit Cemetery. It is a cemetery in the middle of the city, staying on its own. It is so on its own that it is a cemetery where tens of those living around it and passing in front of it have not entered in to breath its air and has not saluted guests inside even once… Anyway, the walls surrounding the Sahrayıcedit Cemetery are so introverted, so closed with their sharp borders; neither those in the past have the power to call out to the present, nor the eyes of those of the present see the past.

Our journey with it started in this way, With the amazement I felt when I learned that the grave of the late Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır is in this cemetery, which I have passed by for years. He is a guest in the house of many with his commentary; who inform us of himself through what he reads and writes; he took the troubles of society to himself; he has worn out his years to pass on what he has learned to people; Was a life devoted to true service forgotten in the secret field of Sahrayıcedit?

We went on the way based on this question. The inward-looking structure of Sahrayıcedit, the necessity of being closed around the cemeteries, the indifference of today's people to cemeteries made it difficult to reach him. Maybe we are afraid or we forgot everything but we do not enter cemeteries no matter what the reason is, we do not visit these places having meaning of visited place (2), we do not meet with our past, we are losing our bond and in fact we are isolating both ourself and them.

If we have forgotten to enter cemeteries, can’t we come eye to eye with them from outside? Just as the tombstones, which were carved one by one in the Ottoman Empire, were turned towards the road so that they could catch the eye of passers-by and make an impression on them (3), can't today's people meet the late Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır with a glance they sent to Sahrayıcedit while they were still outside? Of course, they can meet.
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Nowadays, there is no master who will carve that stone and perhaps there is no person who will be affected by that stone. But there are things that will attract attention of today’s person. Right at this point as Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır has mentioned when he was explaining certain particulars, renewing by having respect for the past and addressing to the future and now, constitute one of the most important tasks of man of this age. Our aim at this point is to attract attention of today’s man with particulars from our time and to make him come eye to eye with Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır without entering the cemetery and to invite him in with the impact of this first meeting. Hence, while people are invited to communicate with Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır, to open Sahrayıcedit Cemetery for social meeting again and to open that moment of hugging where old and the new, past and now, and at one point death and life are remembered together... So, what have we done at this point?

Corten plates were placed at the entrance gate of the cemetery, just across Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır's tomb, in away that attracts people's attention as they walk or drive through the street(the plates are rotated around their own axis and arranged in an illustrated manner). In this way at this point where cemetery meets with Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır’s grave at the closest point a particular is created that will catch people’s eyes and also by completely turning plates towards door section along grave of Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır, it is enabled for inside part to be seen more clearly from this point. The tombstone, which is present in Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır's grave today, which states that his father and himself are here, and whose calligraphy is inspired by his brother, is thought to be an element that represents the past and has a memory, hence it was decided to preserve it. But when it is proceeded from foot part towards head part of grave, by considering that it remained behind people it is carried towards head part of grave. Towards the back of this old tombstone, new plates were added with the same corten material used in the cemetery gate. The entire line on the old tombstone, whichtoday's people cannot read most of the time, was engraved on the new slab right behind, almost like a reflection of the old stone, with today's alphabet. On another corten plate next to it, name, birth and death dates of Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır are written. Hence, by establishing a connection with the corten plates that attract people's attention at the entrance gate, while still outside the cemetery, through these new slabs, which are almost as a background behind the old tombstone, human eye was allowed to connect with these plates in the inside,and naturally with the old stone just in front of them. In other words, a visual sequence was obtained by providing reflections of different layers, which carry traces of the present and the past, from the outside to the inside. In this sequence, the tree rising from the head of Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır's graveis actually the most real and permanent material here, as a sign of this bond established between the past and the present, especially left between the old tombstone and the new slabs.

With all these approaches, as Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır puts it, it's like reading a book (4) while aiming to read his existence here; Again, with Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır's approach, as the best result of this reading, it was desired to leave the soil as plain as possible under all these elements in the upper part in order to allow people to think about themselves by remembering the balance between death and life here. In this direction, in order to preserve the existing soil height so that the plants in the grave can continue their lives; A corten metal plate was used in a perforated structure, partially corten sheets and vegetation, in order to increase the adhesion of soil and material to each other, again in earth tones. One of the reasons for preference was the use of corten at the entrance of thecemetery, in the tomb head plates and in the provision of the tomb structure, as the material is a material that appeals to the present, as well as pointing to this dynamic structure of life between birth and death with its constantly changing structure.  

Finally, light reflecting bands were placed on the cemetery entrance gate and the tree in the fiction as a sign of all this unity in the tomb, so that this fictional creation could express itself at any time of the day. Hence, with this fiction that attracts attention at each hour of the day, as he has done while he was alive, Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır will call on people once again with his grave as he did with his works inhis life and each person passing from here will come eye to eye with his past and walk towards the future.