Take a Virtual Tour of Frida Kahlo’s Blue House Free Online

No first trip to Mex­i­co City is com­plete with­out a vis­it to the Fri­da Kahlo Muse­um. Locat­ed in the vil­lage-turned-bor­ough of Coyoacán south of the city’s cen­ter, it requires a short trip-with­in-a-trip to get there. But even for trav­el­ers who know noth­ing of Kahlo’s art, it’s worth the effort — espe­cial­ly since they’ll come away know­ing quite a bit about not just Kahlo’s art and life but the cul­tur­al­ly rich place and time she inhab­it­ed. For the build­ing occu­pied by the Fri­da Kahlo Muse­um was, in fact, the home in which the artist was born and spent most of her life, mak­ing her one of Coyoacán’s many notable res­i­dents. (Oth­ers include writer Octavio Paz, icon­ic com­ic actor Mario “Can­ti­n­flas” Moreno, and actress-singer Dolores del Río.)

Though I’ve long want­ed to return to the Blue House, as the Fri­da Kahlo Muse­um is col­lo­qui­al­ly known, I some­how haven’t made it back again on any of my sub­se­quent trips to Mex­i­co City. And giv­en the state of world trav­el at the moment, I doubt I’ll get the chance to make anoth­er vis­it any time soon.

For­tu­nate­ly, the Muse­um has become vir­tu­al­ly explorable online, with 360-degree views of all its rooms as well as its grounds. Even vir­tu­al­ly, writes Vogue’s Manon Gar­rigues, “Frida’s spir­it can be felt every­where. In her ate­lier are care­ful­ly arranged pig­ments fac­ing her easel, while in the kitchen, which once wel­comed the couple’s friends to the house, includ­ing their renowned neigh­bor, Trot­sky, who lived next door with his wife, are play­ful ceram­ics.”

For those with com­pat­i­ble head­sets, all of this is also view­able in Web­VR mode —  even Kahlo’s bed­room, where “an urn in the form of her face lies on her bed, hold­ing her ash­es. Beside is the mir­ror in which Fri­da, bedrid­den, observed her­self to paint her famous self-por­traits, such as The Two Fridas and Fri­da y la cesarea, now on dis­play in the vil­la.”

The home-turned-muse­um’s ten rooms dis­play a great deal of Kahlo’s art, of course, but also works by her hus­band, the painter Diego Rivera, as well as the cou­ple’s cloth­ing and per­son­al effects. You’ll find paint­ings by oth­er artists of Kahlo’s day like Paul Klee and José María Velas­co, and also hand­craft­ed items from oth­er regions of Mex­i­co. The only thing miss­ing in the vir­tu­al Fri­da Kahlo Muse­um expe­ri­ence is the req­ui­site cafe de olla enjoyed after­ward, back out on the streets of Coyoacán. Enter the vir­tu­al tour here.

via Messy Nessy

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Brief Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to the Life and Work of Fri­da Kahlo

Watch Mov­ing Short Films of Fri­da Kahlo and Diego Rivera at the “Blue House”

Artists Fri­da Kahlo & Diego Rivera Vis­it Leon Trot­sky in Mex­i­co: Vin­tage Footage from 1938

Dis­cov­er Fri­da Kahlo’s Wild­ly-Illus­trat­ed Diary: It Chron­i­cled the Last 10 Years of Her Life, and Then Got Locked Away for Decades

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.