Abraham Sprachman

Canadian architect Abraham Sprachman worked together with his partner Harold Kaplan, and Sprachman’s son Mandel, designing more than 300 art deco and art moderne movie theaters and cinemas from the 1920s to the 1960s. They also designed many synagogues for the Jewish community, and Kaplan & Sprachman also worked on retail stores, warehouses and factories, apartment buildings, and single family residences. Their design for the Oakdale Golf & Country Club was chosen as a Canadian entrant in the Arts Competition of the 1948 Olympic Games.

While studying bookkeeping in secondary school, a school inspector noticed Sprachman’s artistic talents and transferred him to a program in architecture. With architectural opportunities for Jews limited in Canada, he first designed homes for Jewish clients referred to him by a friend building an accounting firm.