In this paper, the performance of the structural response reduction of the smart passive system, which is based on a magnetorheological (MR) damper incorporated with an electromagnetic induction (EMI) device, for large-scale civil engineering applications has been investigated. The EMI device consisting of permanent magnets and a solenoid coil generates the electric power from the relative motion between permanent magnets and a solenoid coil according to the Faraday's law, and the generated electric power can be used for an MR damper. To validate the applicability of the smart passive system, the real-time hybrid simulation using a shaking table has been carried out after design and manufacturing of a large-size MR damper and EMI device. A five-story full-scale building structure was considered as a numerical part, while the smart passive system was adopted as an experimental part, which were installed on the shaking table. From the hybrid simulation results, it was demonstrated that the smart passive system significantly reduced the responses of the building. Therefore, the smart passive system could be considered as one promising control devices for real application.