The Oswald Wenzel House (Casa Oswald Wenzel) is a historic townhouse on the Large Square in Sibiu, with medieval origins dating back to the 15th century and a largely 19th-century façade. The house takes its name from Oswald Wenzel, mayor of Sibiu and one of its earliest documented owners, who held the property around 1456.
Ownership changed repeatedly over the following centuries, passing through several prominent merchant and patrician families. Between about 1500 and 1600 it belonged to senator and merchant Johann Rappolt and his descendants, followed later by the Armbruster, Simonis, Lutsch and Czekelius von Rosenfeld families. By the end of the 18th century it had passed to Andreas Wolff and Georg Gross.
The appearance visitors see today was shaped mainly after 1828, when mayor and printer Martin von Hochmeister Jr. bought the house and rebuilt it almost completely. The new façade was given a more regular Classical composition, with six upper bays, semicircular decorative panels above the windows and stucco reliefs showing figures from Roman mythology. Wooden rosettes beneath the eaves add another layer of ornament, while the steep roof is punctuated by tall dormer windows.
Older parts of the house survive behind this later exterior. The entrance passage is covered by a barrel vault, while several rooms around the courtyard retain vaulted ceilings and earlier structural features. A wooden balcony runs along parts of the upper courtyard façade, preserving the inward-looking arrangement typical of older houses around the Large Square.
Commercial use developed alongside the residential history. A pharmacy known as the Lion Pharmacy (La Leu) opened here in 1780, before Hochmeister’s rebuilding, and the property later passed to the Saxon University in 1866, which retained it until 1937.
