About In 1547, in the south-eastern part of it, a wooden church was built, in place of the present buildings of the monastery of the Sisters of Mercy.

Its elongated, slightly curved frontage -south and north - they narrowed at the central point of the square so that it divided into two parts.

In the northern frontage, the most interesting buildings were reconstructed according to the plans of Stanisaw Bukowski and Zenon Filipczuk: the armory, which housed the State Archives in Bialystok and the Astoria restaurant.

On the other side, the building at 3 Sienkiewicza Street was built and used as the former seat of the Polish-Soviet Friendship Society and the International Press Club and the EMPiK.

[7] In the eastern part of the southern frontage, the reconstructed monastery of the Sisters of Mercy, called the House of St. Marcin.

In the western part a modernist bank building (Rynek Kosciuszki 7), reminiscent of the Art Deco style, and the socialist realism building of PPede (Rynek Kościuszki 15)[8] which was the first department store in Białystok as well as five post-war tenement houses in the historicist style, which were decorated in the 1970s with the Sgraffito technique.

From its early days up to the existence of the Second Polish Republic, the western side of the square had economic function, as the central marketplace in the town.

Following the war, during the Polish People's Republic period, this has changed: the eastern side lost its ceremonial function as it moved to the newly built Party Square and Skłodowskiej-Curie Avenue while the western side had a mixed function of economic and recreation uses; the marketplace eliminated and in that territory a recreational area constructed with trees and benches in addition to economic function in the form of shops in the ground floors of the surrounding buildings.

[12] Following the end of communism in Poland the and the economic crisis that the city experienced, the square suffered from negligence and there were complaints of bad smells from the park that was located at the western side.

Next to plant elements, animal images, muses figures are portraits of people distinguished for the region: The northern frontage (in the eastern part) begins from John Paul II Square to the intersection with Sienkiewicza Street.

The Białystok town hall (Polish: Ratusz) was never the seat of city authorities, but only served a commercial function.

Founded by Jan Klemens Branicki, it was supposed to compose the space of the market square and constitute its architectural dominance.

In 1953 as a result of the efforts of the first conservator of Białystok after the war, Władysław Paszkowski, a permission was given to re-build the structure.