Don’t go to The Museum of Jurassic Technology if you like technology or dinosaurs. It doesn’t have anything to do with them. Go to appreciate an establishment dedicated to remembering things lost. And for the free cookies and tea.
Though located on a busy street corner of Culver City, the Museum is a world of its own, a blend of taxidermy, European mysticism and folklore, channeling a 16th-century cabinet of curiosities. On display are legacies of failed inventors and adventurers who have become irrelevant in the face of modern civilization’s progress. The Museum stands to reminds us of the annihilating power of time and a museum’s role in preserving Earth’s wonders, no matter how weird.
A tiny, first floor gift shop has a tasteful inventory of constellation charts, iridescent beetle earrings and stereoscopic slides. A mandatory donation fee of $8 is required upon entry. Once inside, visitors must turn abrupt corners and navigate dark hallways between exhibits.
The Museum attracts mainly hipsters, shoestring tourists and bemused families, but typically there aren’t many people to squish past as you meander inside. Highlights include dioramas about the mobile home’s evolution, butterfly wing mosaics and a collection of Soviet space dog portraits. Don’t forget to look for the small things—a mouse on toast, decaying dice and a small painting of pygmy people battling giant cranes.
Sound is everywhere inside MJT. Listen for yapping foxes, crackling campfires and a rushing waterfall. Most exhibits and dioramas beckon and call, guiding you by the ear through cramped hallways. Just how many speakers are concealed beneath MJT’s velvet walls is a mystery in itself.
Stop at one of the many two-person benches to listen to video explanations. A theory of forgetting is relayed through one. In another, the story of a man who placed miniature sculptures inside of the eyes of sewing needles is told above the low drone of an exotic wind instrument.
On the second floor, a quaint Moroccan tea room awaits, dominated by a monumental samovar. Ornate windows let in yellow light and somewhere, out of sight, burbling fountains can be heard. An aging greyhound can sometimes be found keeping a watchful eye on the docent, setting out complimentary almond cookies and mugs for tea. This is a place of meditation where patrons perch in wide-eyed silence and contemplate the curious exhibits below.
But the tea room isn’t the final destination. On the rooftop, a garden and aviary with cooing doves invites you to sit beneath hanging plants and delicate archways. If you’re lucky, you might even meet the founder, David Wilson. Sometimes he plays his nyckelharpa, an ancient, stringed instrument from Sweden, in the elevated open courtyard. His gentle music in combination with the garden’s ambience results in a total loss of time and place.
Enjoy that feeling for what it is. Turning an analytical eye on the experience will only cause the spell to break, leaving you confused and in the mood to write a bad Yelp review (and there are plenty of belligerent ones).
The Museum wasn’t meant to be any one thing. To each person it may say something slightly different and new details emerge with every repeat visit. Put simply, the Museum gives you the opportunity to wonder. And eat cookies.
Produced by Jonathan Shifflett, Animations by Lauren Hale, Postcards courtesy of The Museum of Jurassic Technology