Liechtenstein is a peculiar place, but it is attractive for tourists and investors in real estate Liechtenstein. Sandwiched between Austria and Switzerland, the tiny state has had independence since the fourteenth century. Due to the benign government of the princes, who live in the Schloss that hovers over the capital Vaduz, its 30 000 inhabitants pay few taxes, and enjoy an income higher than almost any other people in Europe -- they approach the Swiss in affluence.

Few visitors would understand this from a casual visit to Vaduz, which seems at first like a dull Germanic provincial city. But suburban-looking houses often have a cow or goat in the back garden. As a town, Vaduz offers a concatenation of kitsch detailing scarcely emulated this side of Las Vegas (though wild ostentation is kept in check by burgerlich primness). But on each side of a vulgar villa are probably small but successful branches of a couple of international banks -- in fact, the villa may be one itself. With its liberal and secretive financial laws Liechtenstein is one of the world's great centres of shuffly money, and indeed, the monstrous former proprietor of this magazine, the vile swindler Robert Maxwell, had one of his last financial redoubts there.

In complete contrast to the kitschy muddle of the rest of Vaduz, the new national art gallery is calm, clear and precise. A carefully honed black rectangle huddles with the few obvious commercial buildings under the wooded slopes of the castle hill. Unlike its neighbours, it is not obviously welcoming. Its blank face, almost threatening, is adorned only with the chaste words 'KUNSTMUSEUM LIECHTENSTEIN'. But looking at it slightly from the side, the grimness becomes altered. Here is architecture, rather than sloppy sentimentality or crass commercialism.