Originally located in the Fine Arts Building on South Michigan Avenue, the initial activities of the Alliance included language lessons, lectures and a lending library of French books and materials.
As the Alliance's activities grew, the organization continued to move to larger spaces and in 1983 it finally found its current home at 810 North Dearborn Street, part of a row of historic townhouses that were slated for demolition.
The particularly French architectural designs were complemented with furnishings from France, and included paving the parkway in front of 810 North Dearborn Street with imported Paris cobblestones.
The main floor auditorium, Salon, upstairs classrooms and lobby, demonstration and teaching kitchen, as well as the renovated library space and Chez Kids Academy in the Dearborn building all bear witness to plans for expanding the Alliance's reach in Chicago as a center for French language and French-speaking culture.
Throughout its history, the Alliance Française de Chicago has played host to a diverse group of guests, welcoming presidents, ambassadors, royalty, authors, film directors, fashion designers, academics and visual and performing artists to its premises.
Notable literary figures lecturing at the Alliance have included Simone de Beauvoir, André Maurois, Jean Giraudoux, Michel Butor, Philippe Claudel, Nobel laureate J.M.G.
LeClézio, and François Nourissier, who later became President of the Académie Goncourt, and the philosophers Henri Bergson, Jacques Maritain and former Justice Minister Robert Badinter.
The performing arts have been represented with appearances by Sarah Bernhardt, Edith Piaf, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Maurice Chevalier, Marcel Marceau, George Balanchine, Yul Brynner, Maria Callas, Régine Crespin, Sean Connery, and Audrey Hepburn.