Kathy has been waiting for this day for quite some time. We scheduled a guided tour of the Frida Kahlo museum and this was one of the items on her bucket list. She has long admired Frida as an artist and is interested in her tenacity and her story of a painful life. I had tried to get tickets, but the thing sells out and I was grateful to get a tour that included Diego Rivera and Frida’s studio house, Casa Azul, and Casa Roja through another tour group.
We met our awesome tour guide, Roman, at 10:30 at the studio house in the San Angel region of CDMX. The house stands in contrast to the other properties in the area in that it was the first functional constructivist building in Latin America. These buildings are build with an industrial purpose-driven design and remove ornamentation that is typical with traditional architecture. The buildings are plain, but extremely functional, and apparently were the scandal of the neighborhood. The scale model below is my version of a drone shot.
The houses were done in two parts, first with the architect purchasing two tennis courts from the adjacent hotel, and the red house in the foreground was designed and build by Juan O’Gordon. The design uses simple columns to support the house with the ground floor primarily for living space, kitchen, with a large open shaded patio. The second floor contained a bathroom and several bedrooms and a large area with floor to ceiling windows. The roof was tiled and sloped to allow for water collection to the cisterns below the house. You can read it all in the link above.
The second house build was Diego’s studio, and he loved working there. It was purposefully built for him and his second floor studio is a fantastic working space that lets tons of light in, but never direct sunlight. His studio was adorned with artifacts he loved as well as his paints, etc. He was very traditional and used natural pigments for his paints, which came from plants and minerals from far and wide.
Frida’s house was small, and very functional, with a tiny kitchen and a small living and work space. Their home was connected by a walkway on the third floor, which interestingly Friday had to climb a precarious staircase from her 2nd floor living space to the third floor roof. (You can see that in the model on the blue house with a thin railing). For someone with such handicaps, that must have been a chore. She only lived in the house for 5 years and much preferred Casa Azul.
We spent about 2 hours touring the property. I am always impressed with architecture and the ways to use space. Of course the area is set up as a museum now, so the gardens have been cleared and the area is maintained as an open space for visitors. After a bit of research I found some older pictures of the properties before they were restored and made into the museums of today. If you are interested, here is the link.
Roman ordered a Uber and we headed to a cafe for a quick bite to eat and some water. Then we walked to the next museum, Casa Azul. The history of this house in the Coyoácan (coyotes) was the place of birth and death of Frida. The house was built in 1904, she was born in 1907, and over time her father, who was a distinguished photographer in the region, mortgaged and lost the house only for Diego to purchase it as a wedding gift and put it in Frida’s name. It was expanded over the years with a final extension build and designed by Juan O’Gordon for Frida. I can go on an on about how beautiful the studio and gardens were, but we really enjoyed the tour and the visit. Here is a picture of just one little area in the garden.
We spent a couple of hours in Casa Azul and then headed through Coyoácan to Casa Roja, which we did not really know anything about. Apparently when her father essentially lost Casa Azul, Friday purchased Casa Roja for her parents and sister and had it redone. She lived in that home for a bit of time during her life. Casa Roja is a very interesting space in that it has the colonial courtyard and the rooms are connected internally through doors, not hallways, and each open to the communal patio. It has been changed to accommodate the museum (patio walkway walled in), but is an interesting building. It actually has a basement as well, which is common in Coyoácan due to the volcanic rock in the area. I love the colonial hacienda style home with the indoor-outdoor designed living space. I created something like it in Coolidge with the back yard; at least as close as I could with the track home/HOA styles we have in the US.
It was a long, beautiful day, and Roman was the perfect guide. He provided such great background, including people and history of the mid 20th century that gave context to what we were seeing. A beautiful day.
Here are some additional photos from the day, and a map of our travels.
