The main buildings are all located in the Parc de la Villette at the northeastern edge of Paris in the 19th arrondissement.

At the core of this set of spaces is the symphonic concert hall of 2,400 seats designed by Jean Nouvel and opened in January 2015.

The hall opened on 14 January 2015, with a performance by the Orchestre de Paris of Faure's Requiem, conducted by Paavo Järvi, played to honour the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shootings which had taken place in the city a week earlier.

On 6 March 2006 the French minister of Culture and communication Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, the mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoë, and the director of the Cité de la Musique, Laurent Bayle, announced the beginning of the construction at a press conference concerning the reopening of the Salle Pleyel, now associated with the Museum.

[12][13] Another organ of 53 stops on 3 manuals and pedals had already been built in 1991 by the same firm for the nearby Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP).