One of the quirkier cultural gems in Los Angeles is the Museum of Jurassic Technology (MJT), featuring an eclectic collection of exhibits (of varying authenticity) inspired by historical Renaissance "cabinets of curiosities" (wunderkammers). It hasn't been broadly reported, but earlier this month, a fire broke out late at night, gutting the museum's gift shop and inflicting smoke damage on several exhibits, with lost revenues estimated to be around $75,000 until the doors reopen sometime next month.
The museum was founded in 1988 by David Hildebrand Wilson and Diana Drake Wilson, "dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the public appreciation of the Lower Jurassic." The collections don't actually have much to do with that geologic epoch, channeling instead the private natural history collections that became common in the 16th century and the later emergence of public museums in the 19th century. Since 2005 there has also been a Russian tea room, a mini-reconstruction of Tsar Nicholas II's study at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.
There are more than 30 permanent exhibits, including one devoted to the life and exploits of the German polymath and Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher. There is also an exhibit called "The Garden of Eden on Wheels," about LA-area trailer parks; another celebrating the micro-miniature sculptures of Hagop Sandaldjian, carved from a single hair and displayed in the eye of a needle; a collection of stereographic radiographs of flowers; a collection of decomposing antique dice once owned by magician Ricky Jay; 19th-century microscopic mosaics made from butterfly wing scales; and a collection of crackpot letters sent to the Mount Wilson Observatory between 1915 and 1935.
Not all of the artifacts housed within the MJT's labyrinthine space are, shall we say, truly historical; Wilson has a sense of humor, a vivid imagination, and a cheeky fondness for the absurd. Lawrence Weschler tracked down the provenance (where relevant) of the exhibits in his 1996 book, Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology. (It's a delightful read.)
Weschler's blog provides the most detailed account of what happened when the fire broke out on the night of July 8. Wilson, who lives out back, saw what was happening, grabbed a couple of fire extinguishers, and ran to the gift shop entry hall, where he emptied the canisters into what Wilson describes as "a ferocious column of flame lapping up the far street-facing corner wall."
That wasn't enough to douse the fire, but fortunately, Wilson's daughter and son-in-law soon arrived with a much bigger extinguisher and doused the flames. Firefighters showed up shortly thereafter to stamp out any lingering embers and told Wilson, "Just one more minute and you'd likely have lost the whole building." Wilson described the smoke damage "as if a thin creamy brown liquid had been evenly poured over all the surfaces—the walls, the vitrines, the ceiling, the carpets, and eyepieces, everything."
Staff and volunteers have been working to repair the damage ever since, with smoke damage repairs being particularly labor-intensive. Weschler closed his blog post with a call for donations to the MJT's general fund to help the cash-strapped museum weather this particular storm, praising the MJT as "one of the most truly sublime institutions in the country."
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