MUJAM

What can I say about the Museo del Juguete Antiguo Mexicano (MUJAM) to fully and accurately represent this place?  MUJAM consists of multiple floors with myriad, slightly chaotic rooms filled with thousands and thousands of antique toys.  If you’re looking for a highly curated museum–this is not that. But if you’re looking for one of Mexico City’s hidden treasures, a bit off the beaten path, and a museum quite unlike any other–MUJAM is for you.  While it may not be expertly curated, a huge part of its endearing charm is its cluttered, seemingly unmethodical displays.   As one meanders from one room to another, you feel as if you’ve entered a toy hoarder’s home.  Extreme edition.  There are some thematic rooms that add a bit of order to the madness: Lucha Libre (Mexican wrestling), Dolls, and Cantinflas, for example.  Truth be told, there’s a lot to take in.  

 

The Doll collection is immense.  There’s a rooms that are dedicated to “Barbie” type dolls, and other rooms with the traditional dolls pictured above.

There are plenty of transport themed toys as well.  If most young girls are given dolls as children, it’ll be hard to find a boy that wasn’t given a train set (even if he secretly wanted, and played with, his sister’s Barbie doll).

 

Finally, the MUJAM showcases two of the most important “low brow” cultural symbols of Mexican twentieth century society:  Lucha Libre and Cantinflas.  These collections are eye opening and reflective of the great importance these two cultural artifacts played, and continue to play, in Mexican culture–both here in México and throughout the Mexican diaspora.