A. Anthony Tappé

Brookline, MA

"As a student, I was just desperate to find the money to get through school," says Anthony Tappé. "I decided then that when I was in a position to do so, I would give money to MIT to create a scholarship so students would have financial assistance." He recently kept his promise by establishing the Albert Anthony Tappé Gift Annuity, which will support a scholarship in the School of Architecture and Planning.

Credit: Richard Howard

"My accountant described the financial advantages to making a gift annuity, and it made good sense. I was planning to leave money to MIT anyway, but doing it now and getting an income for life was the way to go," he says, adding that he also got a tax advantage and a way to diversify his portfolio.

"My time at MIT was wonderful," he says. "The faculty was great, and I made good friends. I wanted to give back in thanks for all that the school did for me."

The son of an architect, Tappé grew up in Arlington, VA, near the Pentagon, which was then under construction. ("It made such an impression on me," he recalls. "I'd never seen a building that big.") He earned a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Virginia in 1952 and master's degrees in architecture and in city planning, both from MIT, in 1958. After two stints in the army, he worked as a city planner for Adams, Howard, and Greeley in Boston, then for the Boston City Planning Board, and later for the Architects Collaborative in Cambridge. In 1961, he founded the architecture firm of Huygens and Tappé. Two decades later, he founded Tappé Associates. In 1979, he was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects, an honor bestowed on fewer than 3 percent of licensed U.S. architects. A past president of the Boston Society of Architects and a member of the Boston Architectural Center Board of Overseers, Tappé has lectured at Harvard and MIT. Inspired by his late wife, Jean, a children's librarian, he built 74 public libraries, including the one shown here in Natick, MA.

"MIT is a wonderful school," he says. "It was where I continued my architectural education, and it was my introduction to the world of city planning. I wanted to support students there, who would then go on to make a significant contribution to society in physical form."

Donors may set up gift annuities that pay beneficiaries a high fixed income.

For more information, contact Judy Sager:

617-253-6463; jsager@mit.edu.

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Or visit giving.mit.edu.