Founded in 1907, Bestattung Wien is Austria’s top funeral director and among the largest in Europe. During the course of its history, its tradition-steeped enterprise has organized two million burials – a number that ranges from intimate services for the immediate family to grand state funerals. 18,500 times a year, its 13 branches in Vienna provide funeral services.
Bestattung Wien’s services include comprehensive funeral organization, assistance with formalities and insurance matters, to boot. But now the old funeral company is offering something brand new:
The company is using one of its crematoriums to heat their new office headquarters.
Bestattung Wien’s spokesman, Juergen Sild, said cremation requires generating a very high temperature and that the idea, in this eco-aware era, is to put the excess energy created to good environmentally-friendly use; instead of letting it go to waste.
Sild also said that the headquarters – which will be situated next to the crematorium and are due to be completed sometime next year – will also be warmed with gas.
The Vienna Funeral Museum of the Bestattung Wien was originally founded in 1967 and then re-designed in 1987. It is at this point, strictly warmed by gas.
The museum holds 1000 different exhibits, offering quite an overview of mortuary practices and funerary rituals which are unique world-wide, with a focus on the Federal Capital of Vienna.