MUFI, Museum of Philately, dedicated solely to postal art in Latin America, was opened in 1998, located in a beautiful restored colonial building on 504 Reforma. The British post office created the first postal stamp in 1840 and with this it gave birth to Philately, a term which refers to the collecting and the study of postal elements: stamps, seals, envelopes and other graphic manifestations relative to the different forms of sending correspondence. It is perhaps the most popular hobby all over the world. On August 1st 1856 the Mexican government put into circulation it’s first postal stamps with the effigy of Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a hero of the Independence.
The museum has a variety of different exhibition spaces beginning with the Sala Grande dedicated to temporal expositions. Included in this space are traditional mail boxes considered as architecture in small scale, almost a tiny building, imagined to host their own inhabitants, the letters. In 2005 to celebrate the 400 anniversary of Miguel de Cervantes publication of El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha or simply Don Quixote, this space hosted poster art placing Don Quixote in contemporary society. For a look at this exhibit visit my picasa web album.
Next is the La Boveda which has a collection of postal stamps, ordered chronologically, back to 1864. There are also about thirty letters written by the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo to her Doctor Leo Eloesser. The museum library, Jose Lorenzo Cossío y Cosío, has more than 6000 books. The museum has a souvenirs store and offers workshops to kids and adults.
The outdoor spaces are lovely and varied from cool and lush to stark and modern.
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