Feuerhalle Simmering

The Simmering Crematorium in Vienna's 11th district is Austria's first crematorium, opened on 17 December 1922. It was designed by the young Clemens Holzmeister under commission from Red Vienna, against fierce opposition from the Catholic Church and the conservative federal government, which had spent years trying to block the project. Holzmeister wrapped a stark expressionist building around the surviving Renaissance pleasure-house of Schloss Neugebaeude, which had previously served as a powder magazine; the dark brick and angular masses count as a key work of early Austrian modernism. The crematorium adjoins the extensive Simmering urn cemetery, where many Viennese notables are buried. Most visitors combine it with a walk through the neighbouring Zentralfriedhof, just one tram stop away.