TEGEN, Robert Frederick (1879- c. 1930), with his business partner Alfred L. Vezina, were active in Portland, Oregon and can be credited with the design of two projects in British Columbia commissioned by the Roman Catholic Diocese. Tegen was a native of Hamburg, Germany, born there on 26 April 1879, and he was the son of Christian H. Tegen (1856-1917), an architect who lived and worked in Manitowac, Wisconsin and in Milwaukee, Wisc., and it is likely that Robert F. trained under his father Christian H. Their family had arrived in the USA from Germany in 1885.
In 1911 the firm of Tegen & Vezina prepared plans for a mannered Renaissance Revival scheme for St. Paul's Roman Catholic Hospital, Burrard Street, VANCOUVER, B.C., 1911-12 (C.R., xxv, 6 Sept. 1911, 61, t.c.; xxvi, 6 Nov. 1912, 50, illus. & descrip.; Province [Vancouver], 11 Jan. 1912, 12, illus. & descrip.). In late 1912, a business announcement about their office was published in the Saturday Sunset (Vancouver), 21 Dec. 1912, 32 which indicated that the newly formed branch office of Tegan & Vezina in Vancouver would carry out local works, with the head office remaining in Portland, Oregon. Vezina was a local Vancouver resident who previously had spent two years as superintendent of construction with Norton Griffiths Ltd., and it may be presumed that he was the local supervising architect for the Vancouver commissions, with the designs originating from R.F. Tegen in Portland.
The following year Tegan & Vezina were commissioned to design, in a similar distinctive style, a substantial Parish Hall and School for Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Church, Haro Street, VANCOUVER, B.C., 1913 (C.R., xxvii, 5 March 1913, 70, t.c.; dwgs. Vancouver City Archives). In Portland their best known work was Ringler's Cotillion Hall (1914), now a national landmark (inf. Oregon Historical Society; inf. Portland Public Library; biog. in Richard E. Ritz, Architects of Oregon, 2002, 383; D. Luxton, Building the West: The Early Architects of British Columbia, 2003,484, 520)