Museum Of Jurassic Technology
Museum Of Jurassic Technology
4
12:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Thursday
2:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Friday
2:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Saturday
12:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Sunday
12:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Full view
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- Expo/Western • 9 min walk
- Culver City • 9 min walk
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Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.
Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as wait time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.
Popular mentions
4.0
232 reviews
Excellent
133
Very good
44
Average
32
Poor
11
Terrible
12
Burak Y
New York City, NY7 contributions
Sep 2022 • Solo
This place should be banned to call itself "museum". You cannot sell drainage water calling ut orange juice, how come it doesn't apply on this scam. An etnic restaurant walls with 4-5 authentic pieces hanged, deserve to be called museum more than this place. They may have picked some crap from the trash can of the street and making a social experiment by displaying those crap in a tiny pathetic dark space
Written October 1, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
shaaka
Honolulu, HI5 contributions
May 2020 • Couples
This is one of the best places in LA. Its hidden treasure can only be appreciated if you leave pretense on the sidewalk.
I went several times, took different people that i thought could understand what they were immersed in. Don't go here expecting MoMA. I hope you leave with a feeling that they are equivalent experiences. Im only writing this because there's a 2point rate with a long dissertation dissing this place.
I went several times, took different people that i thought could understand what they were immersed in. Don't go here expecting MoMA. I hope you leave with a feeling that they are equivalent experiences. Im only writing this because there's a 2point rate with a long dissertation dissing this place.
Written April 26, 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Chuck
3 contributions
Sep 2020
Don't research it, just go!
This is the top spot I refer people to when they visit LA. Perfect for anyone interested in contemporary art, specifically institutional critique. I've visited several times, and I always find something new when I go.
Probably not an ideal museum for children.
This is the top spot I refer people to when they visit LA. Perfect for anyone interested in contemporary art, specifically institutional critique. I've visited several times, and I always find something new when I go.
Probably not an ideal museum for children.
Written August 11, 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Chicago52
Chicago, IL15 contributions
Jun 2018 • Family
First off this is not your typical museum, for those people expecting a typical museum, you will not like it. The point is not necessarily the objects on display but the display itself. The displays, the galleries, the garden, and the overall vibe are impeccably done, all contributing to a general aesthetic explicitly designed to mimic really, really old museums, the dark, dank ones with placards drier than the Atacama Desert and musty dioramas of animals frozen in time.
I mean, this is a museum with an entire room dedicated to a (highly fictitious) history of mobile homes, augmented with what's ostensibly collections of artifacts from what the reader can tell are really just trailer park bums. This is a museum with a entire exhibit dedicated to superstitious folk remedies, with a diorama of a human mouth biting down on a duck's beak, right next to open-faced mouse sandwiches. So go to the Museum of Jurassic Technology not for education, but for sensation, to immerse yourself in a smorgasbord of curios and anomalies, to soak in the strangeness, and leave not feeling enlightened, but very, very confused.
I mean, this is a museum with an entire room dedicated to a (highly fictitious) history of mobile homes, augmented with what's ostensibly collections of artifacts from what the reader can tell are really just trailer park bums. This is a museum with a entire exhibit dedicated to superstitious folk remedies, with a diorama of a human mouth biting down on a duck's beak, right next to open-faced mouse sandwiches. So go to the Museum of Jurassic Technology not for education, but for sensation, to immerse yourself in a smorgasbord of curios and anomalies, to soak in the strangeness, and leave not feeling enlightened, but very, very confused.
Written June 17, 2018
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Taylor K
San Diego, CA875 contributions
Sep 2014 • Friends
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=specs
It 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.
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=specs
It 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.
Written October 14, 2014
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
metrazol
Washington DC, DC56 contributions
Aug 2019
An amazing, tiny, dark, cramp, unsettling and fantastic museum. Don't research it too much, just expect to be mystified and befuddled and confused and amazed. One of my favorite places in the world, and it's right across from downtown Culver City. Worth a visit.
Written August 20, 2019
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
3DDavid
Culver City, CA33 contributions
Sep 2019
Interesting exhibits from micromosaics made of butterfly wings that must be seen through a microscope, to exhibits of foklore, myth, and more, -- all presented in very interesting ways. Has a lovely Tea Room for tea and cookies, and a rooftop garden with white doves.
Written October 2, 2019
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Peter C
Trinidad, CA41 contributions
May 2018 • Solo
OK, this is not your typical "museum" - rather, it is a collection of semi-random, beautifully insane installations. Each turn of a corner yields new, exotic, quirky, and often fascinating displays. Many make you think; others make you laugh; still others make you shake your head and wonder, "...what...?" Well worth a couple of highly entertaining hours - explore the whole place!
Written May 10, 2018
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Jason H
Los Angeles, CA53 contributions
Oct 2016 • Couples
This is a museum made for nerds, misfits, introverts, pot smokers, psychedelic drug users, artists, scientists, book lovers, writers, emos, occultists, sexual deviants, haters, people who enjoy early David Bowie and Talking Heads, people who've had childhood trauma that has been treated with drugs or/and therapy, and folks with a dark sense of humor. You should be someone with an active imagination. At one time in your life someone should have described you as "weird". Above all, you need to have a deep curiosity and willingness to learn about things you won't understand from a brief glance. Some exhibits are laid out in a story format that requires your persistent attention to get all the way through and often doesn't have any big pay-off aside from the narrative itself.
If this doesn't in any way describe you it's better to skip it. If you're looking to take a date here who doesn't have any of the above qualities, skip it. If you have a short attention span, skip it. If you obsessively take selfies wherever you go, skip it. If you follow professional sports, skip it. If you drive a BMW or Audi that you purchased yourself, skip it. You're probably too normal for this place, and that's ok. Don't try to force it or fake it, you'll just wind up not enjoying it here and will resent those who do.
The Museum of Jurassic Technology shouldn't be taken seriously starting with its name. There are no dinosaur bones or computers here. If anything it resembles a large, but fascinating antique shop filled with odd treasures in dimly lit rooms. Were I forced to describe this place in one word it would be "obscure". If I were given another word I would say "random". None of the exhibits have any relation to anything you already know. For example, one of the first exhibits you'll encounter at the entrance is about Geoffrey Sonnabend and his theories of forgetting. You watch a video documentary on a plate of see-through glass describing his theories, you see his desk, and his books while in the distance speakers play the haunting voice of a woman singing a song from the early 1900's. You then go off into sub-exhibits about a few people he met in his life and how their lives connect to his through chance encounters in South America. You see their pictures and belongings, read about their successes and interactions, get a small glimpse of their lives and how they died. The end. Famous people? No. Important people? Not especially. Are these people even real? What does this have to do with anything? It doesn't really matter. It's just a story played out in the form of a multimedia exhibit. In a way it's kind of like installation art.
Other exhibits include ones on superstitious folk remedies, soviet dogs who were launched into space, a Russian theorists' early conception of what space travel would be like, microscopic art, cats cradles, rotten dice, Napoleon's library, miniature staircases and mobile homes, and many, many other oddities. There's a tea room on the 2nd floor where you can have tea and cookies either inside or outside on a shaded patio that doubles as an aviary. There's a small movie theater up here too that appears to be showing aerial views of nothing in particular, it's a good meditative space. They have a nice, clean bathroom. There's also a guy outside that plays an odd instrument, who has a small dog that doesn't seem to like me.
Despite it's modest entrance on Venice Blvd, once you get inside it's very extensive so make sure you give yourself enough time to explore. I would suggest that you eat beforehand. My wife and I spent more than 2 hours here and didn't even see it all.
If you have kids don't bring them here unless they're introverted or weird. They'll probably get bored. No pictures allowed.
If this doesn't in any way describe you it's better to skip it. If you're looking to take a date here who doesn't have any of the above qualities, skip it. If you have a short attention span, skip it. If you obsessively take selfies wherever you go, skip it. If you follow professional sports, skip it. If you drive a BMW or Audi that you purchased yourself, skip it. You're probably too normal for this place, and that's ok. Don't try to force it or fake it, you'll just wind up not enjoying it here and will resent those who do.
The Museum of Jurassic Technology shouldn't be taken seriously starting with its name. There are no dinosaur bones or computers here. If anything it resembles a large, but fascinating antique shop filled with odd treasures in dimly lit rooms. Were I forced to describe this place in one word it would be "obscure". If I were given another word I would say "random". None of the exhibits have any relation to anything you already know. For example, one of the first exhibits you'll encounter at the entrance is about Geoffrey Sonnabend and his theories of forgetting. You watch a video documentary on a plate of see-through glass describing his theories, you see his desk, and his books while in the distance speakers play the haunting voice of a woman singing a song from the early 1900's. You then go off into sub-exhibits about a few people he met in his life and how their lives connect to his through chance encounters in South America. You see their pictures and belongings, read about their successes and interactions, get a small glimpse of their lives and how they died. The end. Famous people? No. Important people? Not especially. Are these people even real? What does this have to do with anything? It doesn't really matter. It's just a story played out in the form of a multimedia exhibit. In a way it's kind of like installation art.
Other exhibits include ones on superstitious folk remedies, soviet dogs who were launched into space, a Russian theorists' early conception of what space travel would be like, microscopic art, cats cradles, rotten dice, Napoleon's library, miniature staircases and mobile homes, and many, many other oddities. There's a tea room on the 2nd floor where you can have tea and cookies either inside or outside on a shaded patio that doubles as an aviary. There's a small movie theater up here too that appears to be showing aerial views of nothing in particular, it's a good meditative space. They have a nice, clean bathroom. There's also a guy outside that plays an odd instrument, who has a small dog that doesn't seem to like me.
Despite it's modest entrance on Venice Blvd, once you get inside it's very extensive so make sure you give yourself enough time to explore. I would suggest that you eat beforehand. My wife and I spent more than 2 hours here and didn't even see it all.
If you have kids don't bring them here unless they're introverted or weird. They'll probably get bored. No pictures allowed.
Written December 12, 2016
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
FGrantWhittle
Memphis, TN3,469 contributions
Apr 2016 • Friends
Even after you watch the introductory slide show, you will be no closer to knowing what Jurassic technology is, so don't worry.
Understand that this place is not so much about giving you information about actual things, even though, some of the things in it are undeniable (either it's a sculpture of the pope that fits inside the eye of a needle or it's not). Many other things are eminently deniable.
For example, I don't think you are meant to succeed at digesting the "scientific discoveries" detailed in the Delani/Sonnabend Halls (something about the fragility of memory). I suspect that Googling Prof. Sonnabend will lead you in circles since all references begin and end with the MJT. I think some people try too hard here. It's better to just let it wash over you. Incidentally, those broken exhibits have been that way since the museum opened. They are intended to be broken.
The subject of the museum is not Jurassic Technology, by the way. Instead, the subject is what makes a museum a museum. Why do we prioritize certain things as worthy of exhibit and not others? Why not have an archaeological exploration of trailer parks? Why do exhibits have to be about real things? What exactly is real, anyway? And why do we so lightly allow a museum to exert authority over us. Why should we assume that what we will see is true or merited or artistic? The museum raises these questions. Even the people who don't like it and find it confusing in the end are actually having the intended reaction. Why put your trust in any curator that he or she will lead you down the right path?
Understand that this place is not so much about giving you information about actual things, even though, some of the things in it are undeniable (either it's a sculpture of the pope that fits inside the eye of a needle or it's not). Many other things are eminently deniable.
For example, I don't think you are meant to succeed at digesting the "scientific discoveries" detailed in the Delani/Sonnabend Halls (something about the fragility of memory). I suspect that Googling Prof. Sonnabend will lead you in circles since all references begin and end with the MJT. I think some people try too hard here. It's better to just let it wash over you. Incidentally, those broken exhibits have been that way since the museum opened. They are intended to be broken.
The subject of the museum is not Jurassic Technology, by the way. Instead, the subject is what makes a museum a museum. Why do we prioritize certain things as worthy of exhibit and not others? Why not have an archaeological exploration of trailer parks? Why do exhibits have to be about real things? What exactly is real, anyway? And why do we so lightly allow a museum to exert authority over us. Why should we assume that what we will see is true or merited or artistic? The museum raises these questions. Even the people who don't like it and find it confusing in the end are actually having the intended reaction. Why put your trust in any curator that he or she will lead you down the right path?
Written April 6, 2016
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Hi, how much time should on allot for the museum? TIA!
Written December 29, 2021
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