Kahlo was born in this house on July 7,1910, and lived here with Rivera from 1929 to 1954. During the 1930s and 1940s it was a popular gathering place for intellectuals. As you wander through the rooms of this cornflower-blue house you'll get a glimpse of the life they led. Most of the rooms remain in their original state, with mementos everywhere. Tiny clay pots hang about; the names Diego and Frida are painted on the walls of the kitchen. In the studio upstairs, a wheelchair sits next to the easel with a partially completed painting surrounded by paintbrushes, palettes, books, photographs, and other paraphernalia of the couple's art-centered lives.

Frida and Diego collected pre-Columbian art, and many of the rooms contain jewelry and terra-cotta figurines from Teotihuacán and Tlatelolco. Kahlo even had a mock-up of a temple built in the garden to exhibit her numerous pots and statues. On the back side of the temple are several skulls from Chichén-Itzá. A cafe on the first floor serves light snacks, and the adjacent bookstore offers a full range of Kahlo and Rivera books and other commercialized memorabilia of this famous couple.

To learn more about their remarkable lives, I recommend Bertram D. Wolfe's Diego Rivera: His Life and Times and Hayden Herrara's Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo.