A museum where imagination touches reality and merges with it, leaving the visitor pleasantly disoriented. This is the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles. An unusual museum that intrigues, fascinates and leaves one surprised. Since its founding year (1988), it has expanded its exhibition space almost tenfold and attracts more than 20,000 visitors each year. If you are wondering what to do in Los Angeles that is a little outside the box, well this is the place for you.
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What is the Museum of Jurassic Technology?
The name itself is not really clear: a museum about Jurassic technology. The definition the museum gives itself, ‘an educational institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and public appreciation of the Lower Jurassic,’ only adds to the uncertainty about what you might get to see inside. But perhaps this ambivalence is the real intent of its founders, David Hildebrand Wilson and his wife Diane Drake Wilson. According to the Wilsons, the Museum of Jurassic Technology is “a museum interested in exhibiting the phenomena that other natural history museums do not want to show.” And you will certainly find just that inside.
The obscurity of its small rooms, the precise and informative captions for each object on display (however bizarre it may be) and in general the interior layouts evoke exhibition halls that existed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, practically the predecessors of modern natural history museums. In this museum you will be able to find common objects with a history, however, unimaginable, as well as things you have never seen before: the question that will repeat itself over and over again in your mind during your visit will be “Is this real?”
A ‘museum of wonders’ that also won a MacArthur Foundation award in 2001, also nicknamed the ‘genius award’. The foundation’s explanation is perfect for describing the place: this is a museum that highlights the power of human imagination and underscores the fragility of our certainties.
Directions
The Museum of Jurassic Technology is located at 9341 Venice Boulevard in Culver City, California, in the Palms neighborhood of Los Angeles.
If you are on the subway, the best stop is Culver City Station between Venice Boulevard and Robertson Boulevard. Alternatively, Palms Station between Palms Boulevard and Exposition Boulevard. In either case, you will have to walk about 15 to 20 minutes to reach the museum.
If traveling by bus, there is a stop in front of the museum in both directions, the Venice/Bagley, served by routes 33 and 733. For more information on mobility in the city, here is our article on how to get around Los Angeles.
Tickets and Opening Hours
The Museum of Jurassic Technology is open:
- Thursdays from 2 to 8 p.m
- Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 12:00 noon to 6:00 p.m.
The Tula Tea Room and Borzoi Kabinet Theater (see next paragraph) keep the same opening hours as the museum.
Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for children between 13 and 21, those over 62 and the unemployed, and $3 for the disabled. Children under 13 can enter for free.
Things to See in the Museum
An enigmatic and disorienting museum unlike any other museum in Los Angeles (and beyond). The fine line between real and unreal in this place becomes even thinner.
In the labyrinth of its rooms that are deliberately dimly lit you can find ant eggs that in the past were used to cure lovesickness, the x-rays of some flowers visible in 3D with special glasses, microminiatures carved into a human hair observable through a pinhead, microscopic, mosaics from the 19th century made from parts of butterfly wings, a human horn, the decomposition of two ancient dice, a gallery of oil portraits of cosmonaut dogs.
These are just some of the examples of the works inside this bizarre museum. If you are too disoriented after your visit to immediately re-enter the chaos of Los Angeles, stop by the cozy Tula Tea Room inside the museum, to sip tea with oriental flavors. This tea room opened in 2005 and is a miniature reconstruction of Tsar Nicholas II’s study in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Also inside the museum is the Borzoi Kabinet Theater, a cinema that shows a series of documentary films produced by the museum in collaboration with the Arts and Science Collective Kabinet of St. Petersburg.
Where to Stay in the Area
Culver City is a dynamic town in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, also home to Sony Pictures Studios, which offers tours of the most famous film sets produced by MGM. Sleeping in this area is recommended if you love movies and want to enjoy the evening nightlife and the many cocktail bars in the area. In our article on the places to stay in Los Angeles, you will also find various other suggestions on the best neighborhoods in Los Angeles to stay in.
