A Legacy by Design: Barbara Kapp ’61 and the Scholarship That Keeps Growing
When Barbara Kapp ’61 established a $70,000 endowed scholarship gift in 2022, she couldn’t have known how it would grow into $448,000 in support for students attending Bennington. Nor could she have known how many students would experience Bennington as a result of her extraordinary generosity.
Kapp was proud of her time studying architecture at Bennington under Tony Smith. She thought he was an unusually good faculty member, especially for specializing in her dual interests of architecture and fine arts. Kapp took dance at Bennington as well as literature. She attributed her life-long enjoyment of good literature to coursework at Bennington.
Throughout her life and career, Kapp reflected her Bennington education. She went on to study Art History and Criticism in the Master’s Program at Hunter College and received her Master’s Degree in Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design. She founded Barbara R. Kapp & Associates Inc., an architectural design and interiors office and completed a wide range of projects with an emphasis on custom residential work, including new homes on Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Cod, and the Greater Boston area.
Kapp wrote that her goal was “to design a product that was functional yet cohered into a distinctive and appropriate image, including environmental respect, sensitivity to building type, community scale, and fabric.”
Kapp founded the Interiors Program at the Boston Architectural Center and acted as the program’s initial director. She was a trustee of Sarasa Chamber Music Ensemble, Fine Arts Work Center of Provincetown, and North Bennet Street School of Boston.
Kapp passed away on February 2, 2025. But there is no end to her impact on the lives of Bennington students nor on what those students will do to shape their own careers and the world.