Sendai City Museum, City museum in Aobayama park, Sendai, Japan

The Sendai City Museum stands on the site of the Third Bailey of Sendai Castle in Aobayama Park. Its 1986 building, designed by Sato Takeo's office, has a steel-reinforced concrete structure with 5,283 square metres of floor space and won the second Public Building Award in 1990. Inside are exhibition rooms, a restaurant, a museum shop and a children's play museum.

In 1951 the Date family sold and donated land to Sendai and gave about 8,000 cultural properties to the city, prompting plans for a museum. Construction began in 1960 on the site of the Third Bailey of Sendai Castle, and the museum opened in 1961 as Miyagi Prefecture's fourth museum under the Museum Law. It closed from 1983 and reopened in 1986 in a new building designed by Sato Takeo's office, which won the second Public Architecture Award in 1990.

The museum's name comes from the city, and its collection centres on the Date clan, who ruled the Sendai domain. Visitors can try on child-sized armour and play Japanese instruments in the children's play museum. Outside stand a statue of Lu Xun donated by Sendai's sister city Shaoxing and a memorial to the army horses and animals of the Second Division.

The museum stands on the site of the Third Bailey of Sendai Castle, now part of Aobayama Park, near Gokoku Pond and the Sendai International Center. It is an eight-minute walk from the International Center subway station on the Tozai Line; the Loople Sendai sightseeing bus also stops at the Museum and International Center stop, about 20 minutes from Sendai Station.

The black-lacquered five-plate cuirass worn by Date Masamune is said to have inspired Darth Vader's costume: American film staff called the museum for reference material. The museum also keeps the 1615 Roman citizenship document granted to Hasekura Tsunenaga, inscribed in UNESCO's Memory of the World register in 2013.