The building where most of the museum expositions are displayed was used as a Jesuit seminary for about 200 years. Established at the beginning of the 17th century by Kateřina of Montfort, the wife of Adam II of Hradec, the museum gained its own building shortly after. The original two-wing L-shaped building was located by the south side of the Nežárecká Gate across from the Jesuit residences, but unfortunately it burned down in 1615. Ten years later construction was begun of a new building with a square floor-plan and a central arcade courtyard. When the seminary chapel of Saint Vítus was completed in 1642, this late renaissance building acquired the shape that it has today. It served as a chapel until the dissolution of the Jesuit order; however, later on it was used for educational purposes – first as a school building, which was even attended by composer Bedřich Smetana when he was young and living in the neighbourhood. From the 1860s until 1923, it was the main building of the Jindřichův Hradec gymnázium secondary school. Two years later, the empty building was bought by the city of Jindřichův Hradec and remade into a museum. The newly renovated premises were opened to the public for the first time in May 1928.