What happens when a museum deliberately blurs the line between fact and fiction, leaving you questioning everything you thought you knew about truth?

Welcome to the Museum of Jurassic Technology, where reality becomes delightfully negotiable. Tucked away on Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles's Palms district, this enigmatic institution has been confounding and enchanting visitors since 1988.

Founded by David Hildebrand Wilson and Diana Drake Wilson, this is not your typical museum. Its dimly lit corridors and labyrinthine layout guide you through exhibits that challenge your assumptions about knowledge, memory, and the very nature of museums themselves.

A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Modern Age

David Hildebrand Wilson and Diana Drake Wilson opened the museum in 1988, drawing inspiration from Renaissance-era cabinets of curiosity, those eclectic collections that predated modern natural history museums. The institution's puzzling name is never explained, with "Jurassic Technology" remaining deliberately undefined.

Wilson's vision earned him a MacArthur Fellowship in 2001, recognition that added another layer of legitimacy to an institution built on ambiguity. The museum survived a fire in July 2025 that caused smoke damage to several exhibits, reopening in early August with its peculiar charm intact.

Where Fact and Fiction Dance

The museum houses over thirty permanent exhibits spanning art, natural history, philosophy, and anthropology. You'll find Hagop Sandaldjian's microscopic sculptures carved from single human hairs and placed within needle eyes, including depictions of Goofy, Donald Duck, and Pope John Paul II.

Other displays include Geoffrey Sonnabend's theories about memory and forgetting, Harold Dalton's micromosaics made from butterfly scales and diatoms, and a portrait gallery of heroic Soviet space dogs. The authenticity of these exhibits varies wildly, some grounded in verifiable fact, others seemingly conjured from Wilson's imagination.

An Invitation to Question Everything

What makes this museum special is its refusal to clearly distinguish fact from fiction. As Wilson himself described it, this is "a museum interested in presenting phenomena that other natural history museums are unwilling to present."

The Tula Tea Room, a miniature reconstruction of a Russian study, serves complimentary tea among live doves. The Borzoi Kabinet Theater screens poetic documentaries exploring science and art. The entire experience, from the dim lighting to the wooden vitrines, creates an atmosphere that Lawrence Weschler called "a museum about museums," where the persistent question remains: what kind of place is this?

Museum of Jurassic Technology Highlights & Tips

• The Delani/Sonnabend Halls Explore the intertwined story of an opera singer and a theorist of memory whose work suggests that memory itself is an elaborate construction we create to shield ourselves from time's passage.
• Microminiatures of Hagop Sandaldjian Peer through microscopes to see impossibly tiny sculptures carved from single human hairs, including characters, portraits, and a baseball player mid-swing.
• Ricky Jay's Decaying Dice View the fascinating collection of decomposing antique dice once owned by the legendary magician, documented in his book about deception and chance.
• Tula Tea Room Enjoy complimentary tea and cookies in this Russian-style space shared with live doves, where admission includes refreshments.
• Embrace the Uncertainty Don't expect clear answers about what's real and what isn't. The ambiguity is intentional and part of the experience.
• Take Your Time The dim lighting and dense information require patience. Allow at least 90 minutes to fully explore the museum's mysteries.
• Read Lawrence Weschler's Book For deeper insight, read "Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder," which attempts to unravel the museum's mysteries through conversations with its founder.
• Visit the Theater Check if the Borzoi Kabinet Theater is screening one of their poetic documentary films during your visit.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology attracts about 25,000 visitors annually, each leaving with more questions than answers. This is not a flaw but a feature, a deliberate invitation to reconsider how we determine what's true and who gets to decide.\n\nIn an age of instant information and easy answers, this peculiar Los Angeles institution offers something increasingly rare: the opportunity to sit with uncertainty, to wonder, and to question the very foundations of knowledge. Whether you see it as art installation, elaborate joke, or serious philosophical inquiry, you'll leave thinking differently about museums and maybe about truth itself.