Other People's Homes: Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo

Almost anyone who visits Mexico City will recognise Casa Azul, the bright cobalt-blue house in the quietly vibrant and deeply atmospheric neighbourhood of Coyoacán. Once the family home of artist Frida Kahlo, it is now a pilgrimage site for school groups, young couples, art lovers, and admirers from around the world paying homage to the icon.

However, further along, past the leafy expanse of Viveros de Coyoacán, in the tranquil, cobblestoned neighbourhood of San Ángel, lies a lesser-known and more intimate destination for art lovers and Kahlo admirers alike. Here you can find the former shared home and studio of Kahlo and her husband, and artists Diego Rivera, known as Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo.

Although Kahlo spent most of her life in Casa Azul, from 1934 until their divorce in 1939, she and Rivera lived and worked in this modernist complex, which has since become one of Mexico City’s architectural and cultural treasures.

Designed by their mutual friend, architect Juan O’Gorman, as one of the earliest examples of functionalist architecture in the city, the complex consists of two independent houses and two artists’ studios connected by a narrow rooftop bridge. One building, painted a deep cobalt blue, belonged to Kahlo; the other, in earthy red and clean white, was created for Rivera. Together, the two structures reflect Rivera’s preferred way of living and outlook on their marriage — two individuals with distinct lives and artistic practices, linked through their union as symbolised by the bridge between their homes.

A model of the complex showing the two separate houses united by a bridge. The third house, visible in the background, was designed by O'Gorman, likely as an architectural prototype. Today, it is part of the Casa Estudio complex and has been used as a guesthouse and exhibition space.

   

Inside, each artist had their own separate living space and space for their creative practice. Frida’s house, the more modest of the two, held her studio, kitchen, dining room, bedroom, and bathroom. Few of her possessions remain, and today the rooms are sparse. Yet these now-empty spaces were home to the painter at a richly productive period in her life that helped to establish her as a deeply original artist. It is here that Kahlo conceived and executed important works such as Lo Que el Agua Me Dio (What the Water Gave Me), which is said to have been painted in the very bathroom pictured below.

The kitchen in Frida Kahlo's house at the Casa Estudio complex.

Details in the now bare rooms at Kahlo's house. 

 The bathroom that served as inspiration for the painting What the Water Gave Me. 

 

By far the larger of the two houses was Rivera’s. In contrast to Kahlo’s now bare rooms, many of Rivera’s possessions and artefacts remained following his death. The largest space, accessed by a spiral staircase, was his studio, where he welcomed guests and created, exhibited, and sold some of his work. Not only does the studio still hold traces of Rivera’s artistic life—his easels, palettes, brushes, and paints still sit before the large industrial windows—but it also houses a striking display of his spirited Mexican folk art collection. From the vibrant and convivial Judas figures—towering papier-mâché sculptures representing demons, skeletons, and characters from Mexican folklore—to functional clay vessels, handmade toys, and clay animal figurines, Rivera’s collection animates the functionalist space with a sense of joyfulness and cultural identity.

   Diego Rivera's studio at Casa Estudio with a portrait he painted of Dolores del Rio.

 

Alongside his studio, Rivera’s home includes a modest bedroom and bathroom, a small living room, and an upper-floor office opening onto a terrace. From here, the rooftop bridge links back to Kahlo’s studio through an impossible external floating staircase that would have been particularly challenging for Kahlo, given her injuries resulting from a trolley accident in her youth. The terrace also offers a view of one of the site’s most charming features: its living fence. Instead of a conventional wall, the architect O’Gorman used a border of tall cactus plants—at the time a controversial architectural gesture in a neighbourhood dominated by European colonial style.

  Diego Rivera's modest bedroom at Casa Estudio.

 Diego Rivera's office (above), with further examples of his folk art collection, and the Casa Estudio roof terraces (below), with the bridge that connects the two houses.

 

While the time the couple spent together at Casa Estudio was marked by artistic productivity, it was also marked by marital turbulence and personal pain, ultimately resulting in their separation and divorce in 1939. Kahlo returned to Casa Azul, and although she later reconciled with Rivera, she never moved back to Casa Estudio, preferring to live in her childhood home, where she remained until her death in 1954. Rivera, meanwhile, continued living and working at Casa Estudio until his death in 1957.

Today, Casa Estudio endures not only as a house museum and bold architectural landmark, but also as a powerful memento of the couple's complex, turbulent and unconventional relationship.