Rockwell Group, the NYC-based architecture and design studio, has unveiled its design for key spaces at Museo Casa Kahlo, dedicated to the life and legacy of the artist Frida Kahlo.
Located inside Casa Roja, a historic family residence in Coyoacán, Mexico City, the museum features spaces that reveal Kahlo’s private world, including her hidden basement studio and courtyard. The opening marks the most significant expansion of the Kahlo family’s cultural footprint in decades.
In collaboration with Fundación Kahlo’s creative director Ileen Gallagher and chief curator Adriana Miranda, Rockwell Group designed the visitor arrival experience, entry garden and basement exhibition, recreating the room that served as Kahlo’s hidden studio, never seen by the public, which is filled with Kahlo’s various collections, ephemera and paints.
Very much still a family home, the museum allows guests to explore a variety of private spaces that contain family artifacts alongside exhibition materials. Among them is a preserved kitchen that contains Kahlo’s only known mural, the basement that served as Frida’s private refuge, and rooms dedicated to her social commitments and students. Digital elements extend the narrative throughout the museum.
Guests arrive at the Museo from the street entrance, as Kahlo and her family would have entered the house. The house driveway has been converted into a corridor that leads to the courtyard. The hallway is set with a ticketing desk fabricated by artisans in Guadalajara, graphic panel wall signage by Pentagram, and a series of historical photographs of the building.
The courtyard has been restored to an amalgamation of its configurations as various generations inhabited the house. Rockwell Group looked through historical family photos in researching and recreating this space. A curved corner stair, where the family historically gathered and posed for numerous portraits, was lost in previous renovations and has been reintroduced to the garden design. A grapefruit tree featured in her mural sits in a hand-carved Cantera stone pot, and ceramic planters showcase regional styles from Oaxaca and Guadalajara.
After passing through a series of galleries and restored rooms of the house, guests descend a set of stairs into a recreation of Kahlo’s hidden retreat. Here, Kahlo was free to write, paint, think and sketch. The candlelit room includes a collection of objects, furniture and textiles that belonged to Kahlo, including dolls, paintings, a bug collection, her desk and paints, as well as family stories told across generations with photographs and letters. Using Kahlo’s original sketches and photographs of the butterflies and insects, the LAB at Rockwell Group designed an interactive replica of her microscope. This allows visitors to peer inside and observe the very specimens Frida would have studied.
