It owes its name to the city arsenal which was once located in the northern part of the plot. However, the building was not used as an arsenal until the Polish-Swedish wars. Before that time it served as a retail outlet for linen, most likely the oldest commercial facility in left- bank Poznań. Rebuilt several times (during the Renaissance period by Giovanni Battista di Quadro, who also remodelled the cloth stalls), it yielded to tenement houses in the nineteenth century. The exhibition pavilion was erected during the post-war renovation of the square.
