Vaduz Castle

The counts of Werdenberg-Sargans are presumed to have built the castle on its rock terrace above Vaduz, though the date of its beginnings is not securely documented. The bergfried is thought to be among the first structures raised, and is placed in the twelfth century; a residential tower added later has been dated by dendrochronology to 1287. At ground level the keep's walls are up to four metres thick, and its original doorway opened on the courtyard side eleven metres above the ground.

The castle first appears in writing in 1322, when it was pledged — with its buildings, the orchard beside it and the people of Vaduz and Triesen — to the bailiff Ulrich von Matsch for 400 marks of silver. Ulrich von Montfort held it as a life grant from 1338, and in the division of the county of Sargans on 3 May 1342 it passed to Count Hartmann III of Werdenberg, who took up residence there and named his line after the seat.

From 1416 castle and territory belonged to the barons of Brandis. On 12 February 1499, during the Swabian War, the Swiss Confederates burned it, and its lord, Ludwig von Brandis, saw to the rebuilding after the peace and his own release. The castle chapel, dedicated to St Anne and holding a late-Gothic winged altar, owes its present form to the Brandis lords.

The counts of Sulz, who held Vaduz from 1507 to 1613, had the place enlarged and improved as a fortification, adding two rondels with walls about five metres thick that served both as gun bastions and as living quarters. Their successors the counts of Hohenems carried the work on until 1712, Count Kaspar von Hohenems extending the western side.

The princely house of Liechtenstein bought the countship of Vaduz in 1712, and the Emperor Charles VI joined it to the lordship of Schellenberg, purchased by the family in 1699, to form the Principality of Liechtenstein. Renamed Hohenliechtenstein, the castle served from 1712 to 1732 as the seat of the bailiwick, with official quarters in the west wing; over the following decades and centuries it fell into decay, and parts of it were taken down for safety.

Egon Rheinberger drew up detailed plans for a free reconstruction, and Prince Johann II carried out a thorough restoration in the early twentieth century under the direction of the state conservator Franz von Wieser of Innsbruck, with Alois Gstrein of Brixen as master builder. Prince Franz Josef II had the interior made habitable and took up permanent residence with his family in 1938. It has been the princely family's home ever since and is closed to the public, though the reigning prince receives state guests there; on the national holiday of 15 August the state ceremony is held on the castle meadow.