How a family and a fire extinguisher saved MJT

When one thinks of cultural landmarks in Los Angeles, perhaps the Museum of Jurassic Technology isn’t the first that comes to mind. But if there’s an institution that appeals to the idiosyncratic sensibilities of Angelenos, the MJT certainly has carved out a unique niche for itself since it first opened in 1988. Unfortunately, the museum recently suffered a major setback after a late-night fire destroyed its gift shop and caused major smoke damage throughout several of its exhibits. Revenue losses while the museum is closed are expected to reach $75,000; however, it is anticipated that the MJT will be able to reopen sometime next month.

Culver City museum has been a beloved fixture in Los Angeles’ cultural scene for decades. Founded by David Hildebrand Wilson and Diana Drake Wilson, the MJT’s greatest success has come from misleading and sometimes disingenuous exhibits that play on the visitor’s willingness to believe. The institution’s website bills it as a museum that is “dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the public appreciation of the Lower Jurassic.” But while the name suggests as much, the museum’s curiosities have little to do with either the Jurassic period (or the entire Mesozoic Era for that matter). Instead, the MJT was inspired by wunderkammers, or cabinets of curiosity, precursors to modern museums that were popular in Renaissance Europe.

Some of the MJT’s exhibits are composed of genuine historical artifacts, but there are plenty of items that mix truth and fiction so closely together that many visitors leave the museum unsure of what is authentic and what is not. Some examples of permanent displays that are genuine include one celebrating the work of 17th-century Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher and another on the ultra-miniature sculptures of Armenian artist Hagop Sandaldjian (the latter being so tiny that they are displayed inside the eye of a needle and sculpted out of single human hairs).

Other exhibits push the envelope even further. There is a room filled with decomposing dice that were once owned by magician Ricky Jay. “The Garden of Eden on Wheels” is an exhibition that offers a visual history of trailer parks in the greater Los Angeles area. The museum also contains stereographic radiographs of flowers, microscopic mosaics made out of butterfly wing scales, and a collection of letters written to the Mount Wilson Observatory by amateur astronomers between 1915 and 1935. In 2005, the museum opened up a Russian tea room that was modeled on Tsar Nicholas II’s study in the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg.

Fire and Its Aftermath

Writer Lawrence Weschler published a detailed account of the museum’s fire, which was originally first spotted on July 8th by none other than David Wilson himself. Wilson, who lives in a residence in back of the museum, noticed flames emanating from the structure and ran to the building with two fire extinguishers in tow. “A ferocious column of flame was leaping from the southeast corner of the building,” Wilson later recalled. “It was burning its way up the corner wall of the museum, the one that faces the street.”

Wilson was able to douse some of the fire with his extinguishers, but they were quickly overwhelmed. Luckily, his daughter and son-in-law arrived on the scene soon after and had a larger extinguisher that they used to bring the fire under control just as the firefighters were arriving. Firefighters at the scene later told Wilson that if they had arrived one minute later, the entire building would have gone up in flames. The gift shop was mostly destroyed, but smoke damage from the fire seeped into many of the museum’s exhibits. Wilson described it as akin to “a thin creamy brown liquid had been evenly poured over all the surfaces—the walls, the vitrines, the ceiling, the carpets, and eyepieces, everything.” Smoke damage can be extremely difficult and time-consuming to remediate, and in this case, the challenge is only made worse by a museum that is defined by its presentation and attention to detail. Museum staff and volunteers have since been working long hours to clean and repair the affected areas.

Supporters of the MJT have been asked by Weschler to donate to the museum’s general fund to help it recoup losses from the fire and the period it is closed. He has also emphasized that the museum is “one of the most truly sublime institutions in the country, a place, that is, almost literally without peers, a place as close to sui generis as any human enterprise is apt to come, which is to say, in a way, both science, and art, and narrative, and not-quite-any-of-those-things either.”

It is currently unclear when the MJT will reopen, but most are confident that it will be able to restore its collection to its former glory, for better or for worse.