With its four storeys, the tall building towers above the others in the row on Kleinmarkt, and its clinker façade is rather incongruous with the many medieval buildings in Meissen.
It is a relatively new building, erected in 1896 on the site of a smaller, two-storey house from around 1800. This in turn was built on the foundation walls of two previous, narrow medieval buildings, as an inspection of the cellar vaults revealed. Today's cellar walls still contain parts of the medieval walls.
The oldest historical depictions of the town by Hiob Magdeburg from 1558, and a townscape from 1601, show a row of adjoining buildings with eaves facing the street, north of the town gate.
While there were already three-storey buildings shown along the Markt, Kleinmarkt 1 and 2 are depicted as single-storey buildings.
The building was less damaged than others during the Thirty Years' War, in the course of which the Swedish invasion on 6 and 7 June 1637 in particular caused great devastation to the town. It was one of the inhabited houses and belonged to Martin Marx.
The Gründerzeit building served as a residential and commercial building, with a shop on the ground floor. In the GDR era, the staircase was rebuilt and the shop area expanded. Up until 1990, there was a children's department store on the ground and first floors.
In 1991, major renovations took place. The clinker façade was cleaned, the staircase and courtyard building were rebuilt, and an optician's shop was set up on the ground floor.
The first floor is now used as an office, with apartments above.
