Legal bases and conventions

The preservation of historical monuments bases its activities on legal and professional foundations. At the national level, these are the Cultural Property Act from 2016 with the associated Ordinance on the Alignment of Financial Contributions under the Cultural Property Act, the Building Act and Building Ordinance, as well as various planning and building code regulations.

Code of Honor

The Conservation of Historic Monuments in the Principality of Liechtenstein is a member of ICOMOS Suisse and the Conference of Swiss Monument Preservationists. It acts according to the maxims of the 1964 International Charter on the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites (Venice Charter) and the Guidelines for the Preservation of Monuments of the Federal Commission for the Preservation of Monuments in Switzerland from 2007.

State Policy Task

The state is responsible for cultural heritage. Accordingly, the integral preservation and maintenance of our multi-layered cultural properties and our cultural landscape is one of the most important and urgent tasks of the State. The European conventions ratified by Liechtenstein are important decrees for the integral preservation, conservation, and protection of historical monuments, sites, assemblages, and archaeological sites. They take into account the new scientific research results and technologies. In addition, they place great emphasis on public information and intergovernmental knowledge exchange. The conventions correspond to the policy pursued by the Principality of Liechtenstein in this area. According to the above-mentioned guidelines, Liechtenstein must not only provide for restoration and maintenance measures, but also for scientific inventories and documentation, for the archiving of photographic, plan and other object documents in accordance with the protection of cultural property, as well as for the publication of specialist publications on monument preservation (accountability reports, monographs etc.) and make funds available.

High building culture

The meaning of the term "building culture" goes far beyond its purely architetconical quality and encompasses, in addition to the built environment, all aspects of human activity and all areas of our lives. And thus, building culture is not only a topic for authorities, experts and actors of planning and building processes, but affects the entire society in many ways. Especially with the European Heritage Year proclaimed by the European Union in 2018, the important role of cultural heritage in the history and identity of every country became more present again and triggered further dialogues.