Photos and Text copyright protected by Pam VanderPloeg 2024 unless otherwise noted.
Buildings hold the shared history of the city.
Photographing Calder Plaza buildings, Pamela VanderPloeg is the recipient of the 2023 Albert Baxter Award from the Grand Rapids Historical Society for significant contributions to the preservation and interpretation of Grand River Valley history and the 2021 David D. Smith Humanitarian Award from the Grand Rapids Chapter, American Institute of Architects for elevating architecture in the community.
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This website celebrates the city and its beautiful, eclectic architectural landscape developed from the pre-Civil War days through the present. Ten years ago, website curator VanderPloeg set out to photograph and document homes and buildings in a quest to catalog the region’s architectural history from the tallest skyscraper to the smallest structures. This website highlights some of the research, photographs, events, and publications. In VanderPloeg’s books and on the website, architects and builders are matched to works across the city and region. Explore the navigation bar to see the range of stories available on the website. The “Bookshop” provides a way to purchase the new books Grand Rapids Downtown Buildings and Ottawa Hills: Early Owners, Architects & Builders. More of the men and women builders and architects are shared in the upcoming book due out this summer—Grand Rapids Mid-Century Modern Homes and Buildings.
Note: Grand Rapids Downtown Buildings is also available at the Grand Rapids Public Museum Gift Shop at 272 Pearl NW and at Periwinkle Fog, a Certified Diverse Business Enterprise – Woman Owned Business located in the historic Ledyard Building at 125 Ottawa NW.