Frida Kahlo’s private and human side is the focus of the at the Museo Casa Kahlo, also known as the Casa Roja, or Red House, a residence that belonged to the Kahlo family for generations. The house was bought by Kahlo’s parents in 1930; they moved there from the nearby Casa Azul where Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera would continue to live until Kahlo’s death in 1954. Frida’s grandniece, Mara Romeo Kahlo, lived in the Casa Roja until just two years ago. Today it retains the scale and warmth of a family home; it is a place filled with memories.
Frida Kahlo is now universally known as an icon of Mexican art, but she was also an individual whose life was intertwined with that of her family. Behind the painter stands the daughter of Guillermo Kahlo, a photographer who captured the essence of Mexico with his lens; there’s the sister of her beloved Cristina; and there’s the teacher who welcomed her many students and admirers into her world.
What’s the story behind Frida Kahlo’s Casa Roja?
The Museo Casa Kahlo, located in the Kahlo family’s Casa Roja, is a new museum dedicated to exploring some of the lesser-known sides of the artist and her life. The museum was designed by the AD100 New York-based firm Rockwell Group. It’s a project that took an existing 20th-century mansion and transformed it into a multi-sensory journey through the life, body, politics, pain, and desire that marked Kahlo’s life.
Unlike the nearby Casa Azul, a museum the presents a more conventional biographical introduction to Kahlo’s life and is located in the home where the artist was born, the Casa Roja doesn’t seek merely to recount the tale of her life, but instead to interpret it. In this new museum, the idea is not to look at objects carefully displayed in glass cases, but instead to immerse yourself in rooms where colors overflow, projections surround you, sounds envelop you, and emotions come to life.
