A rust-colored tree stands in the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, its leafless arms contrasting with the surrounding sugar maples. Get closer, and you’ll see this is no real tree but rather Iron Tree, a sculpture by Ai Weiwei.
A short walk away stands Eve, a glossy bronze by Auguste Rodin tucked in a corridor of European hornbeam trees. Further still, Mark di Suvero’s 25-foot-tall industrial steel sculpture Scarlatti occupies a wildflower meadow.
more america's best TOWNS to visit 2024
Some 300 sculptures — most of them by superstars such as Weiwei, Rodin, Louise Bourgeois and Nina Akamu (who utilized Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches to create the gardens’ The American Horse) — spread across a 158-acre campus at Meijer Gardens.
“This place is special for its ability to intersect art, culture and nature,” says Charles Burke, the president and CEO of Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park.
“We love to generate curiosity around art for those who come to see the gardens,” he says. “And we love to generate curiosity around the gardens for those who come to see the art.”
Michigan’s second largest city (population 200,000), Grand Rapids lies in the heart of the Great Lakes state’s fruit belt, a region rich with orchards and gardens, lakes and fishing streams, all within an easy drive of Lake Michigan.
But at its core, this city is one of crafters, designers, innovators and artists. Grand Rapids exudes a creative energy that extends from the art and flower beds at the Meijer Gardens to downtown parks and from industrial design to breweries.
A big beer town
Grand Rapids may be best known as Beer City, USA. The city has won at least half a dozen nationwide people’s choice honors for its beer scene in the past decade. More than 100 breweries, distilleries and cideries lie scattered around Grand Rapids — so many that the city has created an app to help visitors navigate their options.
Local mainstays include Founders, one of the city’s oldest post-Prohibition era breweries; Brewery Vivant, a Belgian-style brewer that operates the world’s first LEED certified microbrewery; and The Mitten, which pays homage both to baseball and to the shape of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.
Other Michigan brewing powerhouses have opened taprooms in Grand Rapids, too, including Holland-based New Holland, Dexter-based Jolly Pumpkin and Detroit-based Atwater.
The city’s robust craft beverage industry has naturally led to an inventive dining scene, too. Favorite restaurants include Bistro Bella Vita, with an inviting Mediterranean menu; Mertens, a brasserie serving up French classics; Maru Sushi; and MDRD (pronounced Madrid), with modern Spanish fare.
These dining hot spots, like most in Grand Rapids, rely heavily on the agricultural richness of western Michigan. The area’s natural beauty is visible even in the heart of the city, which features dozens of waterside parks and kayak launches. Plus, there’s a downhill ski/mountain bike resort 20 minutes outside the city.
You can even go fly fishing in the middle of downtown, where a “fish ladder” provides spawning salmon with a place to “climb” upriver on their fall migration upstream (the Grand River’s natural rapids were removed in the late 1800s for the sake of river commerce). The fish ladder doubles as a sculptural piece.
Creativity for all
Creativity has been a part of the fabric in Grand Rapids from the beginning. Long before becoming Beer City, Grand Rapids was Furniture City.
In 1837, the city’s first cabinet maker set up shop downtown, and by the 1880s, Grand Rapids had become the capital of fine American furniture design. Buyers from around the world traveled to the city for their premium goods. Office furniture giants Steelcase, Haworth and Herman Miller all trace their roots to greater Grand Rapids.
A passion for creativity was so integral to the city’s ethos that in 1967, Grand Rapids commissioned sculptor Alexander Calder to create La Grande Vitesse, a 43-foot, 42-ton sculpture that sits downtown.
French for The Grand Rapids, the cherry-red La Grande Vitesse has served as a backdrop for the city’s numerous cultural festivals: Festival of the Arts, the Hispanic Festival, Pride Festival, World of Winter and ArtPrize.
Grand Rapidians call the sculpture The Calder, and it has become so identified with the city that La Grande Vitesse is depicted on Grand Rapids’ letterhead, its street signs and even on its garbage trucks.
“Public art is such an important part of the landscape of Grand Rapids,” says Kayem Dunn, a long-time resident who has been involved with downtown development projects for more than two decades.
Dunn cites not only The Calder as worth seeing downtown, but pieces such as Ecliptic, a combination sculpture and outdoor gathering space designed by Maya Lin for the city’s Rosa Parks Circle, and Steel Water, a 33-foot (10-meter) blue artwork by Cyril Lixenberg, which overlooks the Grand River.
“There are 252 works of public art in downtown Grand Rapids alone,” says Dunn, who believes the works are telltale signs of the region’s creative roots. “I tell people ‘Just walk around a little bit. You’ll see some remarkable art.’”
Easy access to culture
Five art and history museums lie within Grand Rapids’ downtown, as do most of the city’s more than 100 live music venues. These cultural offerings represent not only a deep interest in the arts but a longstanding commitment among local business leaders to bankroll them.
Having all those entertainment options within such proximity makes life simple for travelers to the city. Visitors can easily make their way between museums and restaurants, theaters and breweries, nightclubs and hotels entirely on foot.
More than 1,500 pieces of furniture highlight Grand Rapids’ decades-long design creds at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, which focuses on historical, cultural and science exhibits. Hand-carved Victorian bedsteads, sleek Arts and Crafts-era dining tables and mid-century Eames chairs showcase the region’s noteworthy designers.
Other highlights include displays about the area’s indigenous Anishinabek; the history and culture of Grand Rapids’ immigrant peoples, beginning with French fur traders; and a look at Grand River wildlife.
“The Grand River is Michigan’s longest,” says Dale Robertson, president of the Grand Rapids Public Museum. “It runs through the center of downtown. Our city borrows the river’s name. So it only makes sense for this museum to offer a view of the world through that lens.”
The Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) was founded during the height of the city’s furniture boom, in 1910, as part of a citywide movement to create a stellar art repository. The institution has accomplished that with its collection of works ranging from 17th-century etchings to photography, from 19th-century prints to modern neon sculpture and from 20th-century oils to still more exquisitely crafted furniture.
Also part of the downtown cultural landscape is the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum, which commemorates the life and service of America’s 38th president, who hailed from Grand Rapids.
ESSENTIAL GRAND RAPIDS
- EAT: At Bistro Bella Vita or MDRD
- DRINK: Beer at Founders Brewing Co. or cocktails at Mertens Rooftop
- STAY: At Amway Grand Plaza or JW Marriott Grand Rapids
- PLAY: On the beach at Millennium Park or explore Riverside Park
Live music venues include the DeVos Performance Hall with Broadway-style shows and the Grand Rapids Symphony; the 300-seat Peter Martin Wege Theatre with the state’s only professional ballet company; and the 12,000-seat Van Andel Arena, all downtown.
Outdoor concerts take place all summer long on Rosa Parks Circle and live music acts perform at venues as varied as the Founders taproom and the Grand Rapids Public Library.
Leaning into a creative future
Whatever history Grand Rapids has in fostering community creativity, it’s clear that city planners strive to do still more.
All the buzz these days surrounds the recent groundbreaking of Acrisure Amphitheater, a 12,000-seat outdoor performance venue that will revitalize a 31-acre swath on the banks of the Grand River. The $184 million project is set to open in 2026.
At the same time, work is progressing on a new professional soccer stadium (also slated for 2026), improved public access to the Grand River, the restoration of the city’s namesake rapids and a redesign of the Grand Rapids Public Museum as a riverfront interpretive center.
All the projects will be located downtown. And all of them will incorporate public art.
“At the groundbreaking for the new amphitheater, there was already a place set aside for a sculpture,” says Kayem Dunn. “Every time something is built in Grand Rapids, it presents an opportunity for more art.”
It’s a safe bet the project will include a taproom, too.
Next town: Knoxville, Tennessee is No. 9
This “scruffy little city” tastes and sounds great.
Writer Amy S. Eckert lives in Michigan, but she covers travel destinations around the globe for such publications as AFAR, Conde Nast Travel, The Saturday Evening Post, Hemispheres and Fodors.com.