museum of jurassic technology

I'd missed going to the Museum of Jurassic Technology for years, and finally made a grand effort during a recent visit to L.A. Bad sign: One GPS system brought us to the alley behind the Museum. The other kept pointing out the Museum, but not accurately. We found parking on the street because the lot in back is tiny. It was worth the visit just to know that I'm not likely to make any effort to go back. It's a museum because there are "exhibits." But as other reviewers have said, it MUST be art. Or, tongue-in-cheek. Or, a psychotic rage. Or a racket.Well, they got some money out of me for admission, I will say. Nice work if you can get it.I thought I got a guiding clue just after entering from the ticket desk/Gift Shop, where there is a short film showing in a corner that identifies itself as a "Theatre." I watched what I think was a pseudo-grandiose perspective on the Museum and its "collection," referencing great museums, and which I hoped set a tone for my tour of the museum.But it didn't.I mean, I can handle ABSURD, and I love WEIRD, but this place was beyond me and those in my party. I just couldn't get a handle on it-- or even a good LAUGH! Mystical? So it's a collection of STUFF, but I will say that everything is very well displayed-- so it LOOKS like something. ALERT: It's VERY dark inside, and because it's a very small place, passages among displays are tight, and you may find yourself touching others you didn't intend to touch. Or thinking that you just put your arm around your wife, when it wasn't your wife. Honest, honey.Even though the place is small, it's easy to get lost because of the dark, and the lack of any kind of "flow" or progress of visit. I'm guessing that the disorientation was planned, but maybe that's what makes it art. Or not.I WOULDN'T bring children here. Just too bizarre in a scary way. And hard to find your way out. I can't imagine that it would be possible to use a wheelchair, either. You'd have to check.I wouldn't be surprised if one day, comments such as mine would be part of an exhibit at the Museum. During my recent visit, I got to the top floor and there were portraits of what were allegedly Soviet Cosmonaut dogs. Interesting, unusual, with what was allegedly documentation accompanying the pieces. And interesting for 5 minutes.Say, if anybody can explain the MJT, please leave a comment.

If you have a couple hours to spare and you don't want some big boring museum with all the stuff you've seen before, hit up Museum of Jurassic Tech. It's affordable, easy to access, in a cool park of LA (great restaurants in Culver City) and most of all -- the exhibits wild. There is much speculation online that this museum is a fabrication. That the exhibits are the result of someone's incredible imagination. They're convincing yet so bizarre it's hard to know! Just go and decide for yourself. It's worth the trip.

You have to go. It's a legend in LA. However, make sure that they are open. Check for hours. Also, around the corner down the street is the core of Culver City so you make a nice outing of it. Museum of wonderment, tea upstairs in the great teahouse. Say hello to the birds. Then walk over to Washington Ave for a nice meal.

I'm not sure I can add anything that hasn't been articulated here already by people who seem to have a firmer understanding of the place, but I was really thrown by the MJT and wanted to confirm the experiences that others had. This is a really random "museum".I was only in the door about 20 seconds when I realised that many of the exhibits were completely false, but I couldn't understand the angle. I spent most of time there wanting to reach for my phone to check certain claims and artefacts to see if any of it was true (as some was certainly plausible), but I found it hard to really delve into any of it when you know that it's likely to be fiction.My husband and I kept turning to each other in disbeleif trying to work out what we had stumbled on and we're still not sure, but it's only $8 entry for something that was at the very least, quite memorable.The corridors are crowded and many of the exhibits are broken and/or dusty, but is that intentional? Who knows.I'm glad I went, but I completely understand if some people hate it. I wouldn't cross the city to go, but if you're in the area, check it out.

Our kids have lived in Culver City for the past 5 years, and we have passed it countless times. It's on the seedy side of Venice, and looks like an abandoned Masonic building. It is mentioned in a strangely large number of guide books on LA, so we jokingly said that it would be on our bucket list for things to do in LA. Today was the day. Too early for drinks, and not feeling a movie. Out for a walk on a cold day, and the door was open.As others have said, it's hard to describe. I think it's a bit like the Emperor's New Clothes: everyone getting into how heavy and intellectual it all is, without having a clue what it's about. And maybe that's the point.Bizarre Biblical passages and ancient prophecies mingle with quotes about evolution, extinction, and the End Times.Who created this Palace of Puzzling Perspectives? (That's the kind of language one uses in the MJT.)SERIOUSLY. Who is behind it? Is it a joke or not? Is it Biblical fundamentalists? Strange old Masons? Hollywood Hipsters who are pulling our legs? Futurists who are planning for the next planet?The uncertainty is a large part of the mystique.We were shocked at the number of people touring this strange, dark place a couple of days after christmas.Bottom line: This is one of the weirdest of the weird in weird LA. If you're bored and want to get off the usual tourist trek, by all means go.Please be advised that it is extremely dark and very unsafe for older individuals. And kind of scary for kids. If you're between 17 and 60, you might find something to intrigue you. The microscopic paintings, the "Eye of the Needle" exhibit, and a few others are very worth seeing. The price is $8 for an adult, $5 for over 60, and free for kids under 12.There's a tea room upstairs, and a bird sanctuary.Definitely more entertaining than the movie we contemplated... and not as expensive.But it's a freakshow for sure.

This museum looks deceptively small from the outside, but once you can get in it's a labyrinth of hallways and rooms that you can lose yourself in for hours. Describing the exhibits won't do it justice - just go there with some time on your hands and a curiosity about the world and you will have fun!Well worth the drive to Culver City if you are in LA.

It's art all right. It purports to be a museum and then you get inside and everything is quasi something else! Exhibits are grouped and strange, the galleries wander and twist, upstairs has more. It defies description, somewhere between a foreign stranger's attic and steam punk. My favorite was the room where a contraption hangs from the attic and plays beautiful tinkling bells, like a giant windchime of tiny crystalline noise. Oh yes, also the odd wolf- or dog-head in a box thingy that barks at odd intervals. And not to forget the Ricky Jay dice room. Upstairs in this place there is a tea party going on which you can join, complete with beautiful Borzois. If you like your museums comprehensible, skip it.

It took me while to realize that this is an art museum, not a science museum. The term "Jurassic Technologies" is not a reference to the collection. It is a ruse. There is nothing here that is over 2 million years old. It is an entertaining, immersive art installation that feigns to be a macabre collection of historical oddities. Very well done. Loved it. The various elements that are broken and malfunctioning contribute to the ambiance. Bravo!! Mice on toast was brilliant.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology, if you can't tell from the name, is a sophisticated send up of the pretentiousness of some other real museums. The word "eclectic" doesn't even begin to describe this one-off museum. Some exhibits are true (for instance, oil paintings of Soviet space dogs). Other exhibits are. . .well, you have to see for yourself. The presentation is fantastic, and fantastical. You'll laugh, you'll wonder, you'll read the placards twice to make sure you read what you think you read. Look for the Russian wolfhound. . .that's all I'll say.

Words are inadequate to describe the MJT, it must be experienced. The ultimate synthesis of the sublime and the ridiculous, it is so subtly subversive that it is both satisfying and enigmatic. One visit is never enough.

At first the place seems like an intriguing joke that you are in on. As you progress through the exhibits it becomes apparent that the joke is on you. You are not allowed to take pictures so I have none to share, not that they could communicate the atmosphere of menace and smugness. I appreciate that a certain group in the art world feels that this is an incredible installation piece presented as a museum. However, it is far too much work. The absolute highlight were the miniature borzoi and whippet when you reach the tea room. I say nothing of the doves in the Moroccan courtyard. I speak not of the mice on toast. I am silent as the grave about the endless documentaries. If you are in LA and really feel you need to do something outre then perhaps this will meet that need. I came out and greeted the daylight with a sense of relief to be back in a world peopled with many viewpoints.

Regarding the Museum of Jurassic Technology, I have good news and bad news. On the good side, it is highly original, unusual, esoteric and occasionally intriguing, presenting the visitor with arcana seen nowhere else. On the negative side of the ledger, it is very narrow in its appeal, as well as bafflingly cryptic, annoyingly disjointed, occasionally misleading, often boring, and rather meager in content. The main exhibits on offer when I was there — about a bat called the "Deprong Mori"; a neurophysiologist and memory researcher named Geoffrey Sonnabend; the Russian philosopher, futurist and techno-visionary Konstantin Tsiolkovsky; and a portrait gallery of dogs used in the Soviet space program — had little or no connection with each other. An introductory film promised that as one went deeper into the museum the exhibits would go further back in time, but this was not at all true. Above all, everything was just too darn dark. This was true in terms of both light and sound. The exhibits were so poorly lit that it was often difficult to see them clearly, or read what little written information was provided. To get the full story of an exhibit, one had to pick up a phone and listen to a recording. But these were close to inaudible, one was in German, and ... all ... were ... very ... slow ... paced. Zzzzzz. SPOILER ALERT: READ NO FURTHER IF YOU STILL WANT TO VISIT THIS PLACE.Actually, and as its name warns, the Museum of Jurassic Technology turns out to be in large part a hoax, an elaborate joke, played on the visitor who comes with expectations of seeing the normal sort of museum, one that deals with scientific and historical fact. The aforementioned Sonnabend and Deprong Mori exhibits are complete fictions, but their stories are presented in such a deadpan, pseudo-scientific style that for a while the listener is taken in.But to appreciate the joke requires a long process most people will probably not wish to endure. The visitor must come unawares, with his "normal" expectations, and then be willing to invest several hours (as well as the $8.00 admission fee) listening to the slow recorded narratives, and finally realize at the end that it was all an elaborate put-on. Personally, I got bored and frustrated much too fast to even get close to the joke's abstruse punch line, much less enjoy it. And on the whole I regard the time and money I spent there as wasted. Rather than visit the Museum of Jurassic Technology, I recommend reading this article:http://scholarship.rollins.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1123&context=specsIt will give you as full an understanding and appreciation of it as you would get by going there, without such a waste of time and money.

This museum is for anyone inclined towards the weird, strange, and unorthodox. It's partially a joke about museums but it also has a great collection of art, old medical remedies, and lots of strange historical information. There's also a tea room where they serve tea and cookies and a beautiful rooftop courtyard with birds. They play movies on a loop in one room but I didn't have time to watch them for long. I'm definitely going back soon. If you're into weird history and pseudoscience of the past this is definitely the place for you.

A friend tipped us off to this really off-the-beaten path museum. Does it have a very weird smell? Yes. Can it be cramped and hard to get around? Yes. Is it hard to figure out the flow? Indeed. Will you understand the exhibits? Hmmm. Maybe not at first. I have to say, this is the only museum I've ever seen like this. It's weird, it's puzzling, but days later you'll wonder how the heck those items were created (i.e. microscopic mosaics out of butterfly wing scales or a painting of the Pope in the eye of a needle). Then, you'll wonder how they even found those items. If you're looking for something unusual that will make you think, definitely make this tiny museum a stop. Maybe buy a t-shirt or book on your way out; hopefully those funds will help them pay for someone to dust a few things, fix a few broken items and, damn, tamp down that weird smell.

My boyfriend took me to the Museum of Jurassic Technology for the first time a few days ago. The museum is truly bizarre and I spent pretty much the entirely of my visit trying to understand what this place was and who would have created it. The space is dark and smells weird and some/most of the exhibits are puzzling and not very well labeled. Still, it was quite an experience and if you're looking for something a bit (!) unusual I'd definitely recommend stopping in. And the roof deck is lovely!