For its first 14 years, the orchestra performed at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre. In 1903, CSO trustee Daniel Burnham designed Orchestra Hall, an eight-story building of brick and limestone; the building was built for $750,000 over seven months the following year.

The hall underwent $3 million renovations in 1966 and 1981, the second including the installation of a new organ. In 1993, the CSO launched a $110 million expansion, adding a second performance space, a restaurant, and offices, and renovating the acoustics of the original auditorium. The expanded building, completed in 1997, was named Symphony Center.

In addition to the CSO, Orchestra Hall hosts a series of touring acts, once called Allied Arts and now called Symphony Center Presents, which has brought such performers as Marian Anderson, Jacqueline du Pr_, Judy Garland, Benny Goodman, Jascha Heifitz, Vladimir Horowitz, Robert Merrill, and Beverly Sills to the hall. The hall has also been the site of the inaugurations of Chicago mayors Richard M. Daley Jr. and Harold Washington and lectures by Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr.