There are restaurants and shops within the museum's premises, as well as outdoor exhibitions (including the Kuromon) and a garden where visitors can enjoy seasonal views.

The items' authenticity had been ascertained by the recent Jinshin Survey, which catalogued and verified various imperial, noble, and temple holdings around the country.

[12] The 1872 exhibition, held at the Taiseiden Hall of the former Confucian temple at Yushima Seido in the Shoheizaka neighborhood, was open daily 9 am to 4 pm and ultimately admitted about 150,000 people.

[10] The 1873 exhibition in Vienna, apart from the collection of regional objects, also included a full Japanese garden with shrine, a model of the former pagoda at Tokyo's imperial temple, the female golden shachi from Nagoya Castle, and a papier-maché copy of the Kamakura Buddha.

[12] While the Vienna World Fair was going on, the locally-held objects were organized by the Exposition Bureau into a temporary display at a compound in Uchiyamashita-chō (now 1-Chome in Uchisaiwai-chō), immediately southeast of the Imperial Palace, in March 1873.

[6] By this time, it included seven buildings—including a greenhouse—with displays covering Japanese antiques, agriculture, and the natural sciences; the grounds had an area for livestock and a room for bears.

The museum collections were divided into the eight categories of fine arts, nature, agriculture & forestry, history, law, education, industry, and land & sea.

[5] The ministry gave the entire park to the museum in January 1876 but its facilities there weren't completed until 1881, when the original Honkan was completed in time for the Second National Industrial Exhibition; the smaller brick building used by the first National Industrial Exhibition in 1877 was incorporated into this as a wing.

[16] A ceremony attended by Emperor Meiji opened the museum and zoo on 20 March 1882; the library was reopened on September 30.

[7] In 1888[7] or 1889,[5] the imperial household took over ownership of the museum, focusing its operations on cultural and scientific pursuits and ending its direct involvement with trade and industry.

[7] The original Honkan was severely damaged in the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923,[5] and exhibits were moved to the undamaged Hyokeikan.

[17] The structure having originally been promoted as having "solidity... matched by no other" in Japan, its collapse led to disillusionment with the architecture and style it represented.

[5] An Imperial Museum Innovation Promotion Committee was assembled the next year following the ascension of Hirohito as emperor,[19] which ultimately decided to replace the former building.

The present Honkan was opened to the public in 1938,[5] having reorganized its collection to dissolve the history department and classify its holdings as art.

[19] In November 1940, the Shosoin were publicly displayed for the first time to celebrate the supposed 2600th anniversary of the ascension of the first emperor of Japan.

The two-story brick hall incorporated Anglo-Indian architecture, with two green onion domes surmounting the towers flanking the main entrance.

[7] It was replaced by Jin Watanabe's reinforced-concrete structure in the Imperial Crown Style,[23] with a neoclassical base and Japanese roof.

[26] It is three stories tall but employs its basement and a spiral arrangement of mezzanines and stairs to spread its collection over six floors.

The Hōryū-ji Hōmotsukan (法隆寺宝物館, Gallery of Horyuji Treasures) is a two-story building housing the museum's collection of relics from the Horyu Temple in Nara.

[5] A mezzanine between the two floors holds a Reference Room[27] with a digital archive of the treasures, allowing visitors to view the entire collection with explanations in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, English, French, and German.

[29] Its name reflects its construction in honor of the wedding of Crown Prince Yoshihito and Sadako Kujo (later Emperor Taisho and Empress Teimei) on 10 May 1900.

Admission was originally restricted to two-week periods in January, Spring, and Autumn[30][33][31] but it is presently open whenever the main museum is.

The Shiryōkan (資料館, Research and Information Center) holds books, magazines, images, and other documents relating to history, archaeology, and the fine and applied arts in Japan, Asia, and the Middle East.

[35] By 2023, the museum was struggling to delay repairs to cultural assets and pay utility bills for its facilities due to rising electricity and other costs.