Grand Rapids: the furniture city turned art capital

Former American furniture production capital, Grand Rapids hosts every year the nation's largest public art competition.

The center, from furniture tradition to modern urban art capital, is visited comfortably on foot.

The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum recounts the life of the American president who grew up in Grand Rapids, the only president never elected to the vice presidency.

Just a short walk away, the Frederik Meijer Gardens, a botanical garden with monumental sculptures, hosts works by international artists amid tropical greenhouses.

Moving along the Grand River, one walks through the historic downtown, once the heart of the furniture manufacturing that made the city famous throughout the United States.

As evening falls, the ArtPrize festival transforms the entire city into an open-air public art gallery every autumn.

ArtPrize, a public art competition founded in 2009, remains one of the world's highest-endowed art awards, determined in part by public voting from visitors to the city, who reach hundreds of thousands every year.

Grand Rapids was nicknamed 'Furniture City' in the late nineteenth century for its quality furniture production, an industrial legacy still visible in the city's design museums and local art schools.