The main building located in the Place de Fontenoy houses the Secretariat of the Organization. The building is situated on grounds covering three hectares, built in the form of a " Y " or " three-pointed star ", towering 28.75m high and resting on stilts (pilotis). Each floor, of which there are seven, covers a surface of 3,270 m2.
The artistic decoration of the building, of immense artistic and cultural value, in harmony with the architecture, is the result of the international artistic collaboration of M.C. Parra-Perez, President (Venezuela), Georges Salles (France), Shahid Subrawardy (Pakistan) and Sir Herbert Read (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). Of the nine million U.S. Dollars required for the construction, US. Dollars 191,000 were allocated for the " decoration " of the building. The masterpieces which follow are open to the public.

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A second " accordeon-shaped " building with its fluted concrete walls and copper-covered fluted roof, houses the largest conference room in the UNESCO complex where the General Conference holds its sessions, as well as five other commission rooms that have been decorated by Denmark , France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Constructed alongside the Avenue de Suffren, the building is linked to the main building by a passage called the "Salle des Pas Perdus".

A small cube-shaped building four stories high, originally built to house the Permanent Delegations and Non-governmental Organizations is located next to the Garden of Peace (called Japanese Garden) designed by Isamu Noguchi : a wonderful example of cultural identity, including a maize of water basins, stones and trees.

Finally, when in 1965 more space was needed for expansion and the Commission des Sites refused planning permission to build up, Bernard Zehrfuss ingeniously at that time, conceived six sunken patios. Each patio receives daylight and sun and opens onto a sunken garden of trees, flowers, plants, ponds and fountains.