WHAT I SAW: ROMA NORTE, MEXICO CITY
Architecture in Roma Norte echoes Paris tracing back to Porfirio Díaz, who ruled Mexico from 1876 to 1911. Under Díaz, Mexico City was reshaped to mirror Paris, with grand boulevards, leafy medians, and ornate façades signaling European sophistication and control. In Roma Norte, this shows up in Beaux-Arts symmetry and Art Nouveau ironwork—architecture used as a visual statement of modernity, power, and cultural aspiration.
Layered in with this are painted mural walls (which made me think of downtown LA and Miami) and strong dashes of contemporary design of glass and steel. All in all, an intoxicating mix!
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In April we found an unexpected surprise: the whole city was washed in soft purple as the jacaranda trees ad burst into bloom, their petals carpeting streets and plazas in a fleeting, almost dreamlike layer of color.
The contrast of lavender blossoms against the city’s stone façades and modern cafés gives neighborhoods like Roma Norte an especially cinematic, suspended-in-spring feeling. Not to mention the bougenvilla!
A special note about dogs!
Not even Paris comes close to being such a dog-loving city. And such variety!
Lounging in café doorways, trotting beside owners or stretched out in sun patches in the plazas.
They’re part of the city’s rhythm: well-behaved, social, and fully woven into daily life.
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Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo
Designed by Juan O'Gorman, the studio and home of these two icons was as a striking example of 1930s Mexican modernist architecture.
However looking at the exterior stark staircases linking the two buildings (Frida had to walk outside a side window and up and over the roof across a bridge to access her husband’s studio) is what struck an emotional chord: especially after learning she caught him having an affair with her sister.
I loved how my guide had amazing pictures of Frida you can’t find online. He’d hold them up against the house standing where she exactly was: 
And you can’t look at her painting “What Water Gave Me” the same way again.
A witty, design-forward museum devoted to everyday objects and how they reflect Mexican culture, memory, and graphic identity.
A vast, luminous “floating library” where steel, glass, and suspended bookshelves turn reading into a surreal, cathedral-like experience in the heart of Mexico City.
I stood beneath the suspended whale skeleton and enjoyed the feeling of small and in awe:
Museo de Arte Popular
You could go to a different museum every day in CMDX and I chose this one in the little time I had as my friend Ann called it her favorite.
Luminous celebration of Mexican craft—alebrijes, textiles, masks, and fantastical folk art—set inside a restored Art Deco building.
