- calendar_today August 10, 2025
MJT is in recovery mode after a fierce nighttime blaze
A mysterious fire late last month damaged one of LA’s most bizarre cultural institutions, the Museum of Jurassic Technology, better known by its initials MJT. Local fire departments responded to the late-night blaze on July 8, and while they were able to keep the fire contained to the museum’s gift shop, several of the museum’s exhibits sustained smoke damage. The museum has yet to announce an official reopening date but hopes to open later next month.
MJT’s quirky status in LA’s cultural scene has been established for some time now, but the museum’s recent brush with disaster has brought its singular approach to curation into sharper focus. According to a piece by writer Lawrence Weschler that details the history of MJT and the fire that recently damaged it, the museum was founded by David Hildebrand Wilson and Diana Drake Wilson in 1988. Hildebrand Wilson had served as MJT’s sole director and primary writer since its inception.
Self-described as “dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the public appreciation of the Lower Jurassic,” the museum in reality has little to do with the Jurassic era. Instead, its halls mimic those of Renaissance-era “cabinets of curiosity” or wunderkammers, an early form of the modern museum. The MJT’s historical curiosities, layer upon layer of strange and wonderful stories, have found their home in Culver City for over three decades. Though some exhibits in the MJT contain real historical artifacts, many of them are blends of truth and fiction, with visitors often unsure which is which. Among the permanent exhibits are celebrations of the real-life work of Athanasius Kircher, an Italian Jesuit priest and polymath who documented his studies on a range of topics, including natural history and Egyptian history, and Armenian artist Hagop Sandaldjian, known for her ultra-miniature sculptures that can only be seen by eye or with a microscope.
MJT has collected several other off-kilter and inexplicable objects over the years, ranging from a room filled with decomposing dice collected by magician Ricky Jay to a photo-based installation that maps the visual and cultural history of Los Angeles-area trailer parks called “The Garden of Eden on Wheels.” There are collections of stereographic radiographs of flowers, microscopic mosaics made from butterfly wing scales, and an archive of letters addressed to the Mount Wilson Observatory by amateur astronomers between 1915 and 1935. For years since 2005, MJT has included a “Russian tea room” in its museum, designed after the study of Tsar Nicholas II in St. Petersburg’s Winter Palace.
Firefight and Aftermath
Weschler, author of the 1996 book Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder, first noticed the fire and documented its development in his piece. The blaze was first spotted by Hildebrand Wilson. Wilson has a home that sits behind MJT, and he first noticed the smoke rising from the museum late in the night of July 8. He ran toward the building, “wielding two fire extinguishers and aware only of the towering inferno before him.” Wilson later described “a ferocious column of flame… that had sprung from the building’s corner wall that faces the street and was racing across its face toward the building’s windows.”
The fire extinguishers Wilson brought with him weren’t up to the task, however. He was able to slow the fire’s progression with them, but the fire had already grown larger. Luckily, Wilson’s daughter and son-in-law were there to help with larger fire extinguishers. The fire was extinguished just before the Los Angeles Fire Department’s LAFD’s Engine Co. 89 arrived on the scene. Wilson was told that the fire had reached the building one minute earlier; it likely would have engulfed the entire building.
Smoke did spread from the gift shop to other areas, with much of the museum’s damage coming from smoke rather than the fire itself. Wilson was left with the task of cleaning the affected exhibits and areas, and he compared the damage to that of “a thin creamy brown liquid… evenly poured over all the surfaces—the walls, the vitrines, the ceiling, the carpets, and eyepieces, everything.” Smoke damage is a serious problem for the museum, and the effects are slow and arduous to remove. The museum’s team of staff and volunteers has been working diligently to remove the damage since the incident, Weschler said in an interview.
Weschler, a supporter of MJT, has been raising money for the museum’s general fund in the hopes of mitigating damage and loss of revenue. During the fire, MJT estimates that it was losing roughly $5,000 in potential revenue a day, and the estimate of lost revenue to date hovers at $75,000. Weschler’s ask for donations, meanwhile, implored supporters to keep in mind that MJT “is one of the most truly sublime institutions in the country, and not only in this country, really—its exquisite, maddening blend of satire, scholarship, and surrealism being such a singular concoction that it would be a genuine shame if it should ever be allowed to wither away or simply disappear.”
MJT will hopefully be back and running as soon as possible. Its gifts of magic, mischief, and provocation will no doubt be more necessary than ever as the museum reopens shortly.
