Museo Universitario Alejandro Rangel Hidalgo, Ex-Hacienda de Nogueras

As a museum, the Museo Universitario Alejandro Rangel Hidalgo occupies the restored main house of the Ex-Hacienda de Nogueras and is dedicated to the life and work of Colima-born artist and designer Alejandro Rangel Hidalgo, who lived on the estate from the 1940s until his death in 1998. The permanent collection centers on Rangel Hidalgo's own paintings, textile and product designs, and his celebrated illustrations, alongside the colonial-era religious art and pre-Hispanic Colima shaft-tomb ceramics he collected during his lifetime. Galleries are arranged room by room through the historic house, preserving the domestic scale and layout of the hacienda rather than converting it into open exhibition halls, so visitors move through spaces that were originally bedrooms, studies, and sitting rooms. This domestic curatorial approach gives the museum an intimate, biographical character distinct from a conventional regional history museum, presenting Rangel Hidalgo's personal aesthetic alongside the objects that influenced it. The University of Colima has maintained the original tile floors, wood ceilings, and courtyard views throughout the restoration, and the surrounding gardens are considered part of the museum experience. Temporary exhibitions occasionally supplement the permanent Rangel Hidalgo collection, drawing connections between his mid-20th-century design work and contemporary Mexican folk-art and craft traditions.