Eclectic LA landmark MJT faces $75K in losses after blaze

The Museum of Jurassic Technology (MJT), one of Los Angeles’s most eccentric cultural institutions, has suffered damage to the building from a fire in the early hours of July 8. The fire destroyed the museum’s gift shop and caused significant smoke damage to various exhibits. Revenue losses while the museum is closed will likely top $75,000. Plans to reopen the museum are expected to happen in the coming month.

MJT is a long-time fixture in Los Angeles’ quirky cultural scene. The museum, housed in a Culver City mansion, opened in 1988, founded by David Hildebrand Wilson and Diana Drake Wilson. The MJT has gained international attention from visitors seeking its intentionally confounding and sometimes dubious exhibits. On its website, the museum’s mission statement proclaims that the museum is “dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the public appreciation of the Lower Jurassic.” However, the Lower Jurassic has little to do with the museum, whose name is more a reference to the Renaissance-era wunderkammer (literally translated to cabinet of curiosities), which predated the modern museum.

The museum is known for its layered and complex storytelling approach, where historical artifacts exist alongside fictional ones. In some cases, the blending of real and fake is done in such a manner that many visitors don’t realize that fact. The museum’s first permanent exhibit features the real-life Athanasius Kircher, a 17th-century polymath and Jesuit priest known for his encyclopedic pursuits. Another permanent display is dedicated to Hagop Sandaldjian, an Armenian artist known for creating ultra-miniature sculptures using a single human hair and so small that they are displayed within the eye of a needle.

A room is filled with decomposing dice that once belonged to magician Ricky Jay. “The Garden of Eden on Wheels” is a visual rumination on trailer parks of Los Angeles County. There are stereographic radiographs of flowers, microscope mosaics created from butterfly wing scales, and a seemingly madcap collection of letters from amateur astronomers sent to the Mount Wilson Observatory between the years of 1915 and 1935. Since 2005, the museum has hosted a Russian tea room, inspired by the study of Tsar Nicholas II at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

Firefight and Aftermath

Writer Lawrence Weschler, who penned the 1996 book Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder, which explores many of MJT’s exhibits, wrote about the fire in greater detail on his blog. According to Weschler’s account, which was shared in a blog post by the museum, the fire was spotted by David Wilson, who resides in a house behind the museum. He immediately rushed to the front of the building, carrying two fire extinguishers. Wilson “watched in shock as a ferocious column of flame raced toward the roof from where it had started, climbing up the corner wall that faces the street.”

The fire extinguishers Wilson was carrying were insufficient, and he began to run towards his house for more, when his daughter and son-in-law arrived with a larger fire extinguisher. The two were able to put out the flames just before the Los Angeles Fire Department arrived on the scene. The firefighters told Wilson the house would have likely been lost if they had arrived just one minute later.

The gift shop took the brunt of the damage, but smoke from the fire infiltrated the rest of the museum. Wilson described the smoke damage as akin to “a thin creamy brown liquid… evenly poured over all the surfaces—the walls, the vitrines, the ceiling, the carpets, and eyepieces, everything.” Smoke damage to a museum is, of course, devastating and presents new challenges for the museum, which has since been working diligently to clean and repair the damage, a slow and difficult process. Staff and volunteers have worked continuously to clean and repair the damage caused by smoke.

In the interim, Weschler has been encouraging readers to contribute to the museum’s general fund to help in the museum’s recovery from lost revenues and help contribute to the restoration process. Weschler pointed out that the MJT is “one of the most truly sublime institutions in the country,” and lamented its closure.

“We have lost a place that defies easy categories, such as science, art, literature, or storytelling, and in so doing deepens all of those,” he continued. “A place for which no word in any language quite suffices but for which we may still be able to make a case—that it is one of those few temples at which, when we encounter them, we may still be lucky enough to kneel.” While a reopening date has yet to be set, there’s no doubt that this strange hybrid of cultural commentary, low-fi scholasticism, and surrealist dream will reopen.