Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles: LA’s Strangest Museum

Let me preface this review by saying I had no idea what to expect when I came here, I was simply looking at Yelp reviews and saw a lot of positive comments, so I made it a stop on one of my recent trips. That being said, I still have no clue what it is that I saw there, what the purpose of it was or how to describe it. It was, without exaggeration, the strangest museum I have ever seen, and it ranks up there with the stranger things I have seen in my life. I will try to review it in this blog, but honestly, I have had a hard time even describing it in person so good luck if my writing doesn’t make a lot of sense; hopefully, the pictures will be able to portray what I am saying. Without further ado, the review of the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Details

• $10 to enter
• I visited in 2013

History

Their website describes it as “an educational institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the public appreciation of the Lower Jurassic. Walking through the Museum, the visitor experiences, as it were, a walk back in time. The first exhibits encountered are the contemporary displays and reaching the far end of the Museum, the visitor is surrounded by the earliest exhibits.” It also features this quote.

“…guided along as it were
a chain of flowers into
the mysteries of life.”

I guess I will start by talking about the different “exhibits” that the museum had, as this should provide a little more of an understanding of what it is that I saw there. I imagine these change often, and you may not see the same things when you go, but when I walked in and paid, the first room I entered had a miniature statue of Noah’s ark, some reindeer antlers and a desk that had something to do with electricity.

From there, I walked into a room with microscopes where you could look at different amoebas. Then there was a room that was completely dark and had glowing glass balls, which lead into a room that had a diorama that had glasses in front that portrayed a projection of what appeared to be some type of worship while a large wheel made loud bell chimes.

Next, I headed into a corridor that showed the death and degeneration of dice (probably my favorite part of the museum) and an artist who did art and made figures such as the pope in the eye of a sewing needle.

After that, I proceeded upstairs to the room with dog paintings of the dogs that went into space and the quint coffee and tea shop that they had for visitors.

From there, I proceeded through the room that seemed to have something to do with holistic medicine or medicine that had been attempted in the past. The standout there was that people apparently ate a rat sandwich to try and cure deceases; I mean who wouldn’t want a nice tasty mouse sandwich!

There was also an exhibit on small motor homes, and upon exiting into the gift shop, I was also able to see a stuffed sloth.

Now, believe me, there is no exaggeration in the above story, that is what I saw in my 45 minutes in the Museum of Jurassic Technology. When I asked one of the workers what it was that I was looking at, they told me they prefer the guests to take what they want out of it and do not like to answer questions on it. So that was what I took. Below is video recapping some of the exhibits I have mentioned.