Rynek (market square) – The present market square was founded towards the end of the 15th century. In 1496, Kazimierz II the Prince of Cieszyn sold the town two buildings for the purpose of building a new town hall. The only remaining traces of the oldest medieval buildings by the Rynek are the cellars under Renaissance buildings. After the fire of 1552 which destroyed most of the buildings in Cieszyn (at that time wooden), the Renaissance arcaded buildings that replaced them were constructed of timber and stone or brick, evidenced in the present buildings on the west and east sides of the Rynek. After another fire in 1789 the town was rebuilt in a Baroque-neoclassicist style, on the east side of the market square the arcades were bricked up. Today the characteristic features of that style of architecture are still visible; wide, often decorated, entrance halls, barrel vaulting with lunettes, stone doorways and beamed ceilings. In the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th only a few buildings were totally rebuilt or modernised. In the centre of the Market Square is a well with a statue of St. Florian by Wacław Donay of Skoczów, dating from 1777. The well is a relic of the town’s water supply from the 16th century which conveyed water from the foot of Mały Jaworowy.
      The Town Hall extends across the whole of the south side of the Market Square. The first town hall was built from two houses which Kazimierz II, the Prince of Cieszyn, donated to the town in 1496. It has been modified many times. Evidence of Renaissance modifications is the entrance hall with groin vaulting supported by a stone column. The present building was renovated and extended in the 1840s according to the design of the well-known Viennese architect Joseph Kornhäusel and the builder Andrzej Kment. The building which had previously housed the Regional Court (Rynek 2) was joined to the town hall in 1906 and the courtroom became the council chambers of the Town Council. Its interior – ornate wood panels decorated with the coats of arms of Cieszyn noblemen and symbols of craftsmen’s guilds – dates from 1914.