The museum building was built in the mid-Taisho Period (1912–1926) as a merchant-style house of a silk wholesaler. Now as a museum, it exhibits historical materials on Gunnai textiles that supported the Gunnai region, and offers a sense of the work and luxurious lifestyle of wealthy merchants back then. With a Western-style drawing room installed within a traditional Japanese Shoin-style architecture, the building displays a combination of Japanese and Western styles. This was extremely rare at the time, demonstrating the extensive reach of the silk trade to countries across the sea such as China, Taiwan, and Korea.
The entrance hall was used as a place for inspecting textiles that were collected, and for packing and loading them for shipment. To facilitate the receiving and shipping out of textile loads, the ceiling was 3.3 meters high and the raised tatami area 68 centimeters from the dirt floor.
The museum offers a rich collection of items that convey the history of Gunnai textiles. They include rolls of Gunnai textiles, haori coats with lining made of Gunnai textile, documents pertaining to the silk goods trade, fabric samples from a dyeing factory, and items related to the textile industry guild.