ANAHUACALLI

Ever since 1935, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo held the idea of having the Blue House made into a museum. They also planned on building a place for Diego’s collection of Prehispanic art. After Frida’s death, Diego Rivera created a trust with the Bank of Mexico, so as to donate real estate property, furniture, art collections, and a variety of objects. Thus were created the Frida Kahlo M.
useum, better known as the Casa Azul (the Blue House), and the Diego Rivera-Anahuacalli Museum, where a number of the more than 56 thousand works of Prehispanic art that Diego collected during his lifetime are exhibited.
Rivera’s aim at the Anahuacalli was to create a City of the Arts, where architecture, music, theater, dance and crafts could flourish. This was what Diego had in mind when he designed the museum’s courtyard as an open-space theater, along with a gallery and a place where seminars and workshops could be held. 
When the artist died in 1957, the construction works had just begun. Thanks to the generosity of Dolores Olmedo, the Anahuacalli was finished in 1963 and opened to the public in 1964. The museum‘s design was inspired by the Prehispanic teocalli temples (literally, house of energy). The influence of the Teotihuacan culture may be seen in the tablero-talud, where the image of the rain god Tláloc is depicted. Maya and Aztec influences may also be found in the doorway archs connecting the chambers.
The museum was built out of the volcanic rock that covers the site ground since the eruption of Xitle, a volcano on the outskirts of Mexico City. The ceilings were designed by Diego Rivera and built with stones brought from Taxco, the legendary silver town in the southern state of Guerrero.
Carlos Pellicer, the poet, said of the Anahuacalli: “The atmosphere created in this museum by his brilliant donor has no match in the entire world. Its beauty and high spirituality make of the Anahuacalli a museum to be remembered… The collector’s genius, his personal effort and moving generosity meet monumentally in the museum.”