Application of innovative smart control technology is becoming increasingly popular among researchers and practitioners particularly for a structure under wind or seismic excitation. However, the active control technology for a structure subjected to an underground blast loading has not been done so far. A typical blast-induced loading generates high frequency waves (having a very short duration with large amplitude acceleration) that significantly excite the high frequency modes of a structure during the forced regime. However, the transient part of the structural response is governed by the low frequency modes of the structure. As a result, the structure first suffers large floor acceleration responses followed by a large displacement response. In this study two algorithms, namely, pole placement and LQG control are used in order to control both the displacement and acceleration of a three-story building. For active conrod mechanism, a real time single input force is applied through an actuator. The performance of the system under these control methodologies is then compared to judge the suitability and effectiveness of a smart control scheme over widely used passive controlled system. © Springer India 2015. All rights reserved.