"Daddy will fix it" – Facelift for an old apartment building
One of the most famous Austrian actors and cabaret artists was Helmut Qualtinger, who was particularly appreciated for his distinctive Viennese dialect songs. In 1958, in the song "der Papa wird's schon richten" (Daddy will fix it), he sang about the bored and arrogant Jeunesse dorée, who passes the time in one of Vienna's most famous bars, the Eden Bar. "The other day, there sit in Eden and talk, Gießhübel, Puntigam and I," is the beginning of the song about the popular meeting place of high society. A bar with over 100 years of history, located in an apartment building built in 1911.
The owner of this old apartment building at Singerstraße 8 and in the immediate vicinity of Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral is Vienna Insurance Group. It has set itself the task of not only preserving the tried and tested, but also making it sustainable. According to the motto "VIG, they'll fix it", the apartment building was renovated and optimised in terms of energy technology in such a way that it is the first old property in Austria to demonstrably meet the requirements of the EU Taxonomy Regulation with regard to climate protection. Vienna Insurance Group has thus proven that even old apartment buildings can be sustainable with modern maintenance. Other old properties in Vienna and Salzburg are already on VIG's refurbishment list.
The topic of renovating old buildings is becoming increasingly important for sustainability reasons and is also a major challenge. Not only in Vienna, but in many European cities there is a high stock of old buildings. When it comes to the question of renovation or demolition, the decision is often made in favor of demolition and new construction for cost reasons. A study by the EU Commission has shown that buildings are responsible for around 40% of our energy consumption and around a third of greenhouse gas emissions. 85-95% of today's EU real estate stock will still be in use in 2050.
The historic property in Vienna's Singerstraße with its many renowned shops, offices and apartments is sustainably equipped for further use and the Eden Bar now also has a district heating supply and is EU taxonomy-compliant. Gießhübel, Puntigam and Qualtinger would also hold up the champagne glasses to that.
