rohdecan

Canan Rohde-Can

1965 Born in Istanbul

1993 Graduate Engineer in Architecture, RWTH Aachen University
1995 Düsseldorf Art Academy, class of Prof. Ernst Kasper
1993-1997 Worked in various architectural firms in Düsseldorf and Dresden
1997-2001 WissMA, Institute for Building Theory and Design, TU Dresden, Prof. Carlo Weber, Prof. Ivan Reimann

1998 Founded Rohdecan Architekten with Eckart Rohde

Since 2010 Founding member of ZEITGENOSSEN e.V. Initiative for Contemporary Building Culture
2013-2023 Member of the Advisory Board for Architecture and Urban Design of the City of Erfurt
2013-2014 Visiting professor at the Faculty of Architecture at Georg Simon Ohm University of Applied Sciences in Nuremberg
2015-2020 Chair of the Advisory Board for Architecture and Urban Design of the City of Erfurt
Since 2016 Member of the Design Advisory Board of the City of Wolfenbüttel
2024 Appointed to the Art Commission of the State Capital Dresden
2025 Died in Dresden

Canan Rohde-Can was an extraordinary woman whose life was marked by flight, perseverance, and creative energy. Born in 1965 in eastern Turkey to an Alevi family that had been displaced, she initially grew up in Istanbul. Her grandmother, who was illiterate, instilled in her a sense of strength and pragmatism - qualities that accompanied Canan throughout her life. After moving to the Rhineland to live with her parents, she found her way to high school thanks to her mother's determination.

In her early works of migrant literature, she reflected on the experience of being doubly alienated - between her origins and her new home, between tradition and modernity. But the connection to her roots remained alive: her grandmother's “construction sites” sparked her interest in architecture. She went on to study at RWTH Aachen University and the Düsseldorf Art Academy, where she became a master student of Ernst Kasper. Even as a student, she attracted attention with designs such as “A Home for Me” and successes in competitions. Her travels, for example to China in 1987, and the film “Istanbul Gecekondu" - Built Overnight” testified to her curiosity about the world and her sensitivity to social spaces.

After spending her early career in Düsseldorf and Dresden, she also played a formative role as a lecturer at TU Dresden, teaching alongside Carlo Weber and Ivan Reimann, among others. Her strength and warmth made her an inspiring personality. Many asked themselves: “What would Canan do?”

With the founding of the Rohdecan office in 1998, she set new standards: entrepreneurial freedom, openness, precision, and sustainability defined her work. No villas, no museums - instead, public buildings for everyone: courts, schools, research and laboratory buildings. Under her leadership, the office developed into an integral part of German planning culture with construction projects in Dresden, Berlin, Erfurt, Hamburg, and Jülich.

Her contributions to award juries, lectures, exhibitions, and design advisory boards - for example, in Erfurt and Wolfenbüttel - testified to her professional authority and social commitment.

Her contributions to award juries, lectures, exhibitions, and design advisory boards - for example, in Erfurt and Wolfenbüttel - were testament to her professional authority and social commitment.

Despite being diagnosed with cancer in 2015, she continued to run her office with vision and courage, remaining creatively active until the very end. She spent her last years between workations at her summer house in Turkey and her team in Dresden. Shortly before her death in May 2025, she was appointed to the Dresden Art Commission - a late but welldeserved recognition of her life's work.

Canan Rohde-Can was an architect, entrepreneur, teacher, role model, and figure of integration. Her empathy, energy, and unwavering determination to build bridges - between people, cultures, and spaces - will never be forgotten.


Author: Thomas Will
First published in Bauwelt, Issue 24.2025.
Published with kind permission of Bauwelt.

Türken Deutscher Sprache
Turks who speak German

The short story ‘Die Chance’ (The Chance) by Canan Can was published in 1984 by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co KG, Munich.

Canan Can
Die Chance

She was afraid. Afraid of the Germans. She had been in Germany for five months now. Until now, she had hidden at home and had not gone to school. She was afraid that the others in her class would laugh at her because she couldn't speak German, because she couldn't understand what they were saying.
In Turkey, she was in fifth grade. For the last three years, her grandmother had been ill, and she had to look after her with her grandfather. She did all the housework and cooking. When her grandmother died after three years, she could not live alone with her grandfather in the small village. Her parents had to bring her to Germany.
When she landed in Cologne by plane, her parents and her little brother were already waiting for her. She saw her brother for the first time; he was one and a half years old and couldn't walk properly yet.
She immediately got used to her brother. He was very sweet and liked her very much. However, she was very reserved towards her parents. Before, she had seen them at most once a year, and now she had to stay with them all the time. They were like strangers to her, like an aunt and uncle who had taken her in after her parents died.
But after a short time, that didn't bother her too much anymore. Because a few months later, her mother had also started working, and she was alone with her brother almost all day.
She enjoyed taking care of him.
Then the first letter arrived. She had to go to school. They had also sent her a few addresses of different secondary schools. She had told her parents that she didn't want to go to school and asked them not to send her. But two months later, the second letter arrived.
If her parents did not send her to school, they would have to pay a fine.
She started fifth grade at secondary school. There were two other Turkish boys in her class. They must have been good at German, because they often spoke to each other in German. That day, she felt deaf and dumb. Her parents had spoken to the class teacher and then left her all alone in the classroom. She sat next to another girl who stared at her for a long time, then said something. But she replied
with the words her parents had taught her beforehand. ‘I don't understand German,’ she said. The teacher had briefly introduced her.
Everyone had turned around and stared at her. Even afterwards, one or two of them turned around, some smiling at her kindly. But a little later, they seemed to have forgotten her and listened to the teacher. She didn't understand a word. Suddenly, she felt very alone and helpless. She felt tears welling up in her eyes and buried her head in her hands.
Six difficult months passed for her. She still didn't like Germany, but she had already gotten used to her new life. She also got along better with her parents. Now that she was going to school, her mother could only work part-time. Namely in the afternoons, when she could look after her brother. She could now understand her classmates to some extent.
They had nothing against her, but they weren't her friends either. They simply left her alone.
It was only the teachers who didn't leave her alone. They demanded more and more of her. ‘You're not at the same level as the rest of the class,’ her form teacher always said. How could she be in such a short time? She was making more and more progress in German, but it wasn't enough. ‘I need to talk to your parents,’ the class teacher had said. ‘What does he want to tell them?’ she wondered. Would she have to repeat the year?
She was afraid as she waited for her parents at home. She didn't want to be moved to another class. She had just gotten used to her classmates. ‘Tell the teacher I'll try harder, next year I'll try much harder,’ she had told her parents. During the holidays, she would work hard, and then everyone would be surprised at how well she could speak German.
‘She's just not up to the standard of the class,’ the class teacher told her parents. ‘It's not just in English, it's the same in other subjects too. We've given her a chance, but you have to realise that she's not capable of attending this school.’
Her parents had come back, but they didn't say anything, nor did she dare ask them about it. She suspected something bad. Would she have to repeat the year? No, it was something else. The teacher must have said something really bad. She was terribly afraid. Her mother sat down next to her.
She looked very upset. "Your teacher says you're not at the same level as the rest of the class.‘ ’But I'll try hard. I'll get there. Didn't you tell him that? I'll try really hard," her mother interrupted her and looked at her expectantly and anxiously at the same time. Her mother paused, then said with difficulty, ‘They say you have to go to a special school.’ She felt as if she were floating in the air, as if she were in a nightmare. She wished she could wake up now and forget this bad dream, because it was not a nightmare.

This short story is published with the kind permission of dtv Verlag.