page_title: Liebenberg and Kaplan
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Liebenberg and Kaplan / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Main entrance of Hennepin County Medical Center in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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: L&K's architectural success brought to life thousands of buildings in the Twin Cities and the Upper Midwest, either through original design or expansion/remodeling projects based on contemporary tastes and standards. In a 2015 article about L&K's accomplishments, StarTribune writer James Lileks cites the Hasty Tasty restaurant at Lake and Hennepin as "a reminder of what they gave the state, the hundreds and hundreds of structures that brought imagination and flair to everyday life". Many L&K-designed homes and buildings, both large and small, are still standing.
  Of the more than 200 L&K-designed or redesigned theaters, few remain. In downtown Minneapolis, their lavish renovations of the Academy, World, and Gopher theaters were destroyed as a result of urban renewal, but the firm's 1929 Art Deco makeover of the State survives, restored in 1991 with city funding and now part of the Hennepin Theatre Trust. 
  The firm's first theater design, The Granada (later renamed Suburban World), showed movies from 1928 until it closed in 2003. Located in a high-rent area of Uptown, the building has managed to survive the wrecking ball, and after being vacant for five years it was purchased in 2018. The new owners plan to renovate and restore its original Spanish Revival style while converting the 6,000-square-foot space into a live music and entertainment space—the only one in the Uptown commercial district..
  In addition to Temple Israel (which has remained in continuous use by its congregation since its opening in 1928) and Adath Jeshurun ("considered one of the finest examples of synagogue architecture in the Northwest"; now First Universalist Church), several L&K-designed houses of worship still stand in the Twin Cities. The newly formed Valley Community Presbyterian Church in Golden Valley commissioned L&K for its 1951 building (the original chapel is now the lounge; the firm also designed the fellowship hall that was added in 1955). Hope Presbyterian Church, founded 1954, has a similar story, with its original sanctuary and a later addition designed by L&K.
  Surviving institutional buildings include the large, Georgian-style red-brick structure the firm designed by L&K for the Jewish Sheltering Home for Children in North Minneapolis (1934; renamed Oak Park Home in 1940), which remained in service until 1964; in 1997 it became the home of the nonprofit organization Avenues for Homeless Youth. Larger institutions that remain in their original L&K-designed buildings include the KSTP-TV headquarters in St. Paul (1948) as well as the Hennepin County Medical Center in downtown Minneapolis (1976). Jack Liebenberg was still at the firm at the time of the hospital's design.
  Seeman Kaplan remained with the firm until his death in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on November 26, 1963; he was buried in the Minneapolis Jewish Cemetery in Richfield, Minnesota. Jack Liebenberg retained the partnership until 1973 and continued a private practice until 1980. He died in Edina, Minnesota, on March 23, 1985 at age 91; he was survived by his wife, Raleigh, his two daughters, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. His funeral service was held at Temple Israel.
  As Lileks noted of the firm and the monolithic Hennepin County Medical Center, "it's possible to be born in a Liebenberg building and die in one—and enjoy some time in between watching stories in the beautiful rooms they made".
caption: Hennepin County Medical Center in 2007
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