MODO, Museo del Objeto del Objeto Tickets

A vintage soap wrapper, an old lottery ticket, a hand-lettered shop sign: MODO treats the throwaway objects of daily life as things worth keeping. The Museo del Objeto del Objeto sits in a restored Art Nouveau house in Roma Norte, built on Bruno Newman's collection of packaging, advertising and graphic art gathered across two centuries of Mexican life. It is small, specific and more fun than that description sounds.

What will you see at MODO?

MODO has no fixed permanent display. Instead it runs rotating shows drawn from a collection of everyday objects, packaging, posters, advertising and graphic design, each exhibition built around a theme rather than a single artist. The house itself, an early-1900s Art Nouveau mansion, is part of the appeal.

The collection began with Bruno Newman's decades of gathering the ordinary things most people throw away, and the museum uses them to tell the story of Mexican design, consumer culture and graphic art. One visit might trace the history of a product's packaging, another the evolution of hand-lettering or protest posters, so what is on the walls changes through the year.

Because the shows rotate, it is worth a look at the current exhibition before you go so you know the theme. The building rewards the trip on its own, with period detail carried through the restoration, and the scale is human: this is a place you can see properly in about an hour.

How to visit and what it costs

MODO is a small, independent museum, and it sells admission at the door and through its own site rather than a booking platform, so the link here goes to its official page. General admission is low, around 60 pesos, and there is no timed-entry system to worry about.

Since the exhibitions change, the practical move is to check what is showing and the current hours before you set out. There is no skip-line product and rarely a queue; you buy on arrival and walk in. Allow about an hour for the shows and the house, a little more if design or graphic history is your thing.

Know before you go: hours, closed days and getting there

The museum is on Calle Colima in Roma Norte, one of the city's best neighborhoods for a slow afternoon of cafes, bookshops and tree-lined streets. It opens Wednesday to Sunday and closes Mondays and Tuesdays. Metro Insurgentes and the Metrobús along Avenida Insurgentes put you within a short walk.

Roma Norte is made for pairing a museum with the walk around it, so give yourself time to wander Colima and the streets nearby. Confirm the current hours and the exhibition on the official site before you go, since a small museum's schedule can change around show installations. The table sums up the essentials.

What to pair nearby

Roma Norte sits just south of the Centro Histórico, so MODO folds easily into a day that reaches into the old city. The Torre Latinoamericana gives the classic view over the center, and the Museo Memoria y Tolerancia, beside the Alameda, is a serious, affecting stop that both take bookable tickets.

Do MODO and the Roma cafes in the morning, then head into the Centro for a bigger sight in the afternoon. For everything else within reach, our guide to mexico city museums lays the collections out by neighborhood and theme.

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