In the 19th century, Miusskaya Square was one of the most neglected places in Moscow. Since the times of Peter, there were warehouses for firewood here. A contemporary of those events, Moscow chronicler D.I. Nikiforov, recalls his trip here in 1830 for timber for construction: "The weak light of the lanterns barely flickered, there was mud up to the hubs below, and rain poured from above. We traveled through an endless sea of mud. Finally, the horses stopped, exhausted... The mud on Miusskaya Square persisted even in 1856. On the coronation of Alexander II, I traveled from what is now Dolgorukovskaya Street to the pavilion of the Khodynka Field, crossed Miusskaya Square, and my carriage got stuck in the quagmire, so at night I had to call workers to pull it out with levers."

Only in the late 19th century did the square transform and become a center of science. A number of buildings for various educational institutions were constructed here, including the Moscow City People's University named after A.L. Shanyavsky.

In 1898-1899, in the northern part of the square, a red-brick three-story building with white decorative brick on the facade was erected according to the design of architect M.K. Geppener, the House of City Schools named after Emperor Alexander II. It was designed for 600 students and was solemnly opened on August 30, 1900.

Maximilian Karlovich Geppener, who was long associated with the Moscow Architectural Society, actively worked in Moscow in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He designed numerous buildings, including for the Moscow water supply, including the famous Krestovskie water towers, which were destroyed in 1940. He also built educational and orphanage buildings, apartment houses, and private mansions.

Geppener passed away in 1924 and was buried at the German (Vvedensky) cemetery in Moscow. His grave is lost, but a few years ago, a bust of the architect by sculptor N.M. Avvakumov was installed near the cemetery office building.

During the Soviet era, the Moscow Chemical Technology Institute was located in the building on Miusskaya Square. It is now the "red building" of laboratories for physics, physical chemistry, and colloid chemistry at the D.I. Mendeleev Russian Chemical Technology University.