At first glance this complex of apartments, which covers roughly a quarter of the block at 11th and Thompson, would appear to have been built in the 1940's or 1950's.  Its clean lines, expansive windows and complex form, which hides the fact that there are 10 apartment units within, tend to be associated with mid-century ideals.  Yet this is a product of the building boom of the 1920's, one of seven substantial apartment structures designed by the enigmatic Ewald T. Pape in the 1920's and early 1930's.  The fine state of preservation, imaginative handling of space, and certainty of the attribution to Pape helped to qualify this building for listing on the National Register in 1997 as an excellent and well-preserved example of some of the best in 1920's multi-family residential construction in Portland.

Pape's concept was to design a large building that could fit easily into a neighborhood of single family dwellings.  His solution was somewhat different from that of Frederick Bowman a few years earlier.  By this time labor costs were higher, and the elaborate structural elements of the Craftsman Style were out of favor, but even with a simplified architectural vocabulary, Pape was able to break the facade into sections, which each had the scale and proportion of the surrounding houses.  (Unfortunately, by the 1960's the apartment developers had lost any such concerns for fitting in, and the sad result of buildings constructed without concern for visual integrity and harmony can be seen in parts of the south edge of Irvington.)

From the beginning, these apartments attracted professionals, sales, and managerial workers and their families, as they have ever since.  What has appealed to tenants is the distinctiveness of the units, attention to decorative details, individual entrances to each unit from the street, and efficient and practical use of space.  In fact, one of Pape's achievements in these units was the inclusion of 10 completely different units in a single building where the needs of each space dictated the configuration of the structure itself, rather than -- as had been common for years -- forcing the apartment units to conform to the structural and decorative scheme of the building.

For all of the skill and inventiveness that Pape brought to his designs, very little is known about him.  He appears to have started as an architectural draftsman around 1921 in Portland, and began designing homes and small apartment structures a few years later.  In those years an architects license was not required for residential architecture, and Pape never acquired one.  He is listed in City Directories over the years in various capacities like "Architect", "Architectural Designer", and "Building Contractor".  His last listing was for 1954, but it is not known exactly when or where he died [see Update below]. 

Update: New information has been provided in January, 2011, by Pape family members to clear up some of the mystery surrounding Ewald Pape's biographical details:

Ewald Pape was born in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1894, and immigrated to the US in 1913, at which time his family settled in Chicago.  After a brief stint living in Wisconsin, he moved to the Portland area around 1920, marrying his wife Alma in Vancouver, WA, in 1923.  Evidently, he spent all of his working career as an architect in Portland, although there is a house in Chicago the he may have designed prior to moving to Portland.  He appears to have moved with his family to California in the mid 1950's.  He died in May, 1976, in Downey, California.  He and his wife Alma had one son, Albert T. Pape.