The first museum exhibition opened in 1965 in the old Herrnhut building from 1747. The Museum was inaugurated at that very location on 23th of August 1966.
The museum was subsequently moved to its current location in the 1970s after a repatriation program between the National Museum of Denmark and the Museum of Greenland had begun.
The repatriation program, called Utimut - which means "Going back", meant that thousands of Inuit items that had been taken to Denmark by explorers, was returned to Greenland. This meant that the museum outgrew its original building and had to be moved to our current buildings.
The majority of the exhibition- and administration buildings are from 1930-34 with a extension from 1992. Originally the buildings served as bakery, store, cooper's workshop and warehouse.
The museum is split into four different buildings, all located within a short walking distance from each other.