page_title: Liebenberg and Kaplan
section_title: Architectural acousticians and theater designers
hierarchical_section_title: Liebenberg and Kaplan / Partners / Architectural acousticians and theater designers
caption_attribution_description: English: The exterior of Minneapolis, MN's Riverview Theater.
context_page_description: Liebenberg and Kaplan was a Minneapolis architectural firm founded in 1923 by Jacob J. Liebenberg and Seeman I. Kaplan. Over a fifty-year period, L&K became one of the Twin Cities' most successful architectural firms, best known for designing/redesigning movie theaters. The firm also designed hospitals, places of worship, commercial and institutional buildings, country clubs, prestigious homes, radio and television stations, hotels, and apartment buildings. After designing Temple Israel and the Granada Theater in Minneapolis, the firm began specializing in acoustics and theater design and went on to plan the construction and/or renovation of more than 200 movie houses throughout Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Architectural records, original drawings, and plans for some 2,500 Liebenberg and Kaplan projects are available for public use at the Northwest Architectural Archives.
context_section_description: The firm's success with acoustics at Temple Israel led to the emergence of L&K's theater specialization. In 1927 theater owners Rubenstein and Kaplan hired L&K to design a place to show "Talkies," the Granada Theater (1927; later renamed the Suburban World). The architectural style chosen by L&K, with its Spanish-inspired Moorish atmosphere, reflected the trend toward "atmospheric theaters" and featured ornate balustrades, mock arched windows, and stars and moving clouds on the ceiling. Vacant since 2012, the Granada/Suburban World remains the only surviving example of an atmospheric theater in Minneapolis and one of few remaining in the state. Another atmospheric theater designed by the firm, the 915-seat Paradise in Faribault, Minnesota (1929) also had a Moorish theme; after closing in the late 1980s it was recently renovated and reopened as Paradise Center for the Arts, a 300-seat performance space that has been restored to its original splendor.
  Every movie theater in the Twin Cities in the 1920s had been built to show silent movies. After the advent of talking pictures in 1927 and following the success of Temple Israel and the Granada Theater, Liebenberg and Kaplan were often called in by theater owners needing to update their auditoriums to improve the acoustics.
  
  The movie business was one of the few industries that thrived during the Great Depression; starting in the 1930s L&K was hired to design new movie houses in Minnesota and beyond. The firm became architect of record for prominent theater owners Finkelstein and Ruben, who later sold their business to Paramount; this led to L&K working for Paramount Corporation on small-town theaters throughout the Upper Midwest that needed extensive remodeling.
   Several of L&K's original theaters still function as movie houses today. L&K-designed theaters still extant in the Twin Cities include the Edina (1934, "a suburban temple of sharp-angled zigzag deco style"), and in Minneapolis, the Hollywood (1935, "an early showcase of streamlined deco style: rounded corners, smooth surfaces, and asymmetrical balance"), the Varsity (1938, in Dinkytown near the University of Minnesota campus, now a music venue), the Uptown (1939, at the center of Uptown, Minneapolis), and the Riverview (1948, remodeled 1956, in the Howe neighbor-hood of Minneapolis). 
  Other Minnesota theaters still in their original L&K structures are the Hollywood (1936, Litchfield) and the Chief (1937, Bemidji, now home to the Paul Bunyan Playhouse).
  The partners also designed the 1936 remodel of the still-functioning Fargo (1926, Fargo, North Dakota), and the 1941 Art Deco renovation of the NorShor (1910, Duluth, Minnesota). One hundred years after its opening, the Duluth Economic Development Association purchased the NorShor with the intent to return it to life as a vibrant cultural center — serving the needs of the arts, dance, theatre and musical organizations from across the region. After a successful fundraising campaign, the newly renovated NorShor—with its L&K-designed Art Deco elements still intact—opened with much fanfare in February 2018.
  In northern Minnesota's Iron Range, two historic L&K theaters are currently under renovation; both are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Lyric Theater (1912; 1920s remodel, Virginia, Minnesota), originally built for vaudeville acts and silent movies and redesigned in the 1920s by Jack Liebenberg, is currently being redeveloped into a performing arts center. The Ely State Theater designed by L&K (1936, Ely, Minnesota), closed in 2008 but was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2015. It is currently undergoing a five-year renovation, reopening as a film and performance venue in early 2020. 
  Most of the theaters designed by Liebenberg and Kaplan were in the Art Deco or Streamline Moderne styles, including two built for Twin Cities theater proprietors Sidney and William Volk: the Camden (1938) and the Nile (1942). By the 1940s, the Volks owned three theaters in Minneapolis, one in St Paul, and one in suburban Robbinsdale.
  The Volk bro
caption: Riverview Theater exterior
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