Together with the City Hall, the Lower Market Square is undoubtedly the most important part of old Gorlitz. The name of the Lower Market (Nieder Mark), Untermarkt) appears in sources in the first years of the 15th century. The oldest source reference to the City Hall (situated in the southern and western corner of the Lower Market Square) comes from 1369, although the beginnings of the building date back to around 1350. Reconstructed many limes, the building has retained some elements typical of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture. The City Hall tower, reported in 1378, was reconstructed in the years 1511-1516. After it had been raised up to about 60 m, the tower received a late-Gothic architectonical form. After damages caused by lightning in 1742, it was crowned by a new Baroque cupola. The most famous part is the stairs leading to the City Hall built in 1537-1538. Their author is Wendel Rossko-pf, a famous architect who raised many buildings in the spirit of the Renaissance in Lusatia and Silesia. Over the stairs, since 1488 there have been late-Gothic stone blazons of Maciej Korwin (d. in 1490), a Hungarian ruler of Lusatia. In the south-eastern part of the Lower Market Square (Untermarkt no 14), there is a building for the town's scales, which was probably made in 1453 and reconstructed in the years 1599-1600 according to a design of Jonas Rosskopf. The old town development of the "centre" has a number of extremely valuable townhouses and each of them has its own interesting history. Although the facades of the local townhouses represent Renaissance and Baroque, most of the houses hold Gothic relics and their plans ore based on Middle Age building lots. Schonhof, which is situated in the south-eastern frontage of the Lower Market Square, is of particular value. It is the oldest Renaissance burgher house in Germany, which was erected in the place of another older one in 1526. The building was reconstructed in 1617 and 1716-1717. Next, in the north-eastern frontage there is a Renaissance house from 1550-1552 where August Struve founded his pharmacy in 1771 (Untermarkt no. 24). The facade of the building is decorated by sundials and astronomical drawings by Zechariah Scultetus, brother of the more famous Bartholomeus Scultetus.
