The purpose of this paper is to identify through experiments the finite element (FE) model of a building structure using a magnetorheological (MR) fluid damper. The FE model based system identification (FEBSI) technique evaluates the control performance of an MR damper that has nonlinear characteristics as equivalent linear properties such as mass, stiffness, and damping. The Bingham and Bouc-Wen models were used for modeling the MR damper and the equivalent damping increased by the MR damper was predicted by applying an equivalent linearization technique. Experimental results indicate that the predicted equivalent damping matches well with the experimentally obtained damping.