The best museum in the world (in my opinion, and from the perspective of a museum nerd) exists in Los Angeles behind a rather austere and unassuming facade. I was fortunate enough to visit it without really knowing what it was and with no expectations (and also after eating the best chicken i’ve ever had). I would recommend that you do the same if you can (the chicken was from Go Go Bird at the nearby Citizen Public Market).
But given that popping over to America isn’t likely something to be done on a whim feel free to read on.
Image of the Front of The Museum of Jurassic Technology (Taken from Trip Advisor)
It was after a rather disastrous time working in the US a friend suggested that he’d come and visit and we could do a bit of a US tour. Doing a loop from San Francisco down to LA, across to Vegas and then back via Yosemite. Putting this trip together is actually where my spreadsheet and map system came from.
The Museum of Jurassic Technology was dutifully selected and honestly chosen for a visit because it had a cool name and was conveniently located on our way back from Santa Monica pier. Neither of us looked into it any more than that.
Stepping in through the rather dingy entrance and gift shop we then watched the introductory movie that was shown on a tiny black and white TV with a near incoherent narrator. I turned to my friend and asked “Have we come to another cult museum?”
What followed was a whirlwind of exhibits; one on a middle ranking American physicist and his affair with a moderately famous opera singer, a room of trailer art, the medieval bestiary staircase, the library with nothing but books about Napoleon, the portrait gallery of soviet cosmonaut dogs and so on and so on ending at the top with a Turkish garden complete with free tea and an aviary.
Both in the description here and in actuality it is a wild mess of a place where you don’t know what’s coming next that makes it an absolute delight.
A picture of the medieval bestiary staircase (Taken from Trip Advisor)
What this all means and what’s going on is much like a piece of art somewhat open to interpretation. However to me the central thrust is fairly simple. It’s a museum about museums. What museums are, how they function, and most importantly what we choose to display in them.
In the museum the question is asked “Why should we have a display on Victorian theatre equipment?” but rather “Why not?” which it then promptly does to the exact same standard as any exhibit in any good museum.
It’s asking very important questions that we rarely stop to consider. What are we displaying and why are we displaying it? I would expand on this idea but in many ways that is exactly what the rest of this blog and my continued work with museums is. This equally is the turning point where I really started to get into museum and museum design after seeing what they can be.
So, to that end I would encourage anyone who is going to be anywhere near to make the trip to see what a museum can be in order to consider what they could be.
