Fire threatens LA’s most surreal museum experience

One of Los Angeles’s most offbeat and beloved institutions is still reeling after a nighttime fire earlier this month resulted in extensive smoke and fire damage to the building. According to a recent post in the Chronicle of the Higher Museum, the fire destroyed the museum’s gift shop and caused smoke damage to the many exhibits that line the rest of the museum’s interior. The total loss in revenue while the museum remains closed is expected to be near $75,000, with hopes for a reopening later next month.

The MJT has been a part of LA’s cultural scene for a long time, and for its loyal patrons, it has occupied a singular space as one of LA’s quirkiest institutions. It was established in 1988 by David Hildebrand Wilson and Diana Drake Wilson, and since then, it has drawn audiences to its weird and, in some cases, purposefully dubious collections. The museum’s mission statement, which describes it as “dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the public appreciation of the Lower Jurassic,” hints at the misdirection of some of its exhibits, as its stated historical focus has little to do with that period. Instead, the MJT’s exhibits have drawn inspiration from wunderkammers, or cabinets of curiosity from the Renaissance period, which served as the precursors to the museum as we know it today.

The museum’s exhibitions are known for their multilayered meta-storytelling and appreciation of oddities, and while some of the museum’s displays do feature real historical artifacts, others are a mix of fiction and fact that leave most of its visitors wondering what’s real. A permanent exhibit on Athanasius Kircher, a real-life 17th-century polymath and Jesuit priest who had encyclopedic interests, serves as a genuine tribute to this fascinating historical figure. Another permanent exhibit displays the work of Hagop Sandaldjian, an Armenian American sculptor who created ultra-miniature sculptures that are so small they are displayed on the eye of a needle, and were created using a single human hair.

Some of the museum’s displays go even further leftfield. One dark room houses decomposing dice once owned by magician Ricky Jay, while another, “The Garden of Eden on Wheels,” is a visual history of trailer parks around the greater Los Angeles area. The museum has hosted stereographic radiographs of flowers, microscopic mosaics created from butterfly wing scales, and a surreal collection of letters written to the Mount Wilson Observatory by amateur astronomers from 1915 to 1935. In 2005, the museum also acquired a Russian tea room, with interior designs modeled after Tsar Nicholas II’s study in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

The fire and its aftermath

A lengthy article in the Chronicle of the Higher Museum, written by author Lawrence Weschler, who investigated the origins of many of the MJT’s wondrous artifacts in his 1996 book Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder, gives an in-depth description of the fire and its aftermath. It was first noticed by David Wilson himself, who lives in a house behind the museum. Seeing smoke coming from the museum, he ran outside with two fire extinguishers in hand, which he attempted to use to douse the flames. He later described it as a “ferocious column of flame” shooting out of the building, starting at the ground and climbing the corner wall facing the street.

Wilson was unable to quell the fire with the extinguishers he had, but his daughter and son-in-law happened to drive by moments later and were able to stop the fire with a larger extinguisher, just as firefighters were arriving at the scene. The firefighters told Wilson that they would have likely lost the building had they arrived one minute later.

While the physical damage to the building was mostly limited to the gift shop, smoke damage was more widespread. Wilson likened the damage to having “a thin creamy brown liquid… evenly poured over all the surfaces—the walls, the vitrines, the ceiling, the carpets, and eyepieces, everything.” Smoke infiltration is a major issue for the museum, which takes pride in its presentation and display, so the museum’s staff and volunteers have been working tirelessly to clean and repair damage, but progress is slow.

Weschler has been asking supporters to donate to the museum’s general fund in order to help offset some of the financial losses and defray the costs of the repair. In an emotional post on his website, he wrote that the MJT is “one of the most truly sublime institutions in the country,” an almost one-of-a-kind place that transcends categories and defies any strict categorization as science or art, or narrative.

The museum’s expected reopening is still undetermined, but those involved are hopeful that it will be up and running again at some point next month. It will likely emerge on the other side of this incident just as wondrous and resolute as ever, its potent mix of satire and scholarship, and surrealism as enduring as ever.