The Hotel du Lac in Tunis, Tunisia, was once a glitzy holiday spot that attracted stars including James Brown and reportedly inspired designers for Star Wars
Demolition work is poised to commence on an iconic brutalist hotel that is believed to have inspired a striking piece of the Star Wars set.
Reports of the impending destruction of the Hotel du Lac, in Tunis, Tunisia, have sparked outrage and resistance from locals, architects, holidaymakers, and conservation specialists across the North African nation.
The 1973 creation by Italian architect Raffaele Contigiani is regarded as a brutalist masterpiece – an architectural movement that emerged in the mid-20th century, characterised by raw industrial materials, imposing scale and emphasis on practicality.
Tunisia’s first president, Habib Bourguiba, ordered the Hotel du Lac to celebrate a flourishing tourism industry following the nation’s independence from France. Consequently, the inverted pyramid structure has evolved into a significant and instantly recognisable landmark in Tunisia.
“The hotel is a unique witness to a certain age,” Mohamed Zitouni, a Tunis-based architect involved in the preservation campaign, told the BBC several years ago. “It’s one of the rare buildings after Tunisian independence that shows vision and maturity.”
During its heyday, the 416-room establishment was a glamorous and desirable holiday destination, drawing celebrities such as James Brown and allegedly influencing Star Wars designers who based a spacecraft on its design.
Fans of George Lucas’ space opera may notice a striking resemblance between its distinctive shape and that of the Sandcrawler, a ground-based vehicle used by the diminutive Jawas on the sand-covered planet of Tatooine.
In ‘A New Hope’, it is in front of this vehicle that Luke Skywalker first meets robot companions R2-D2 and C3-PO, the Mirror reports.
Regrettably, the golden era drew to a close for Hotel du Lac, which shuttered its doors in 2000 following years of alleged poor management.
In 2011, former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali offloaded the property to Lafico, the Libyan government-owned investment fund, according to CNN.
Proposals to renovate the hotel were put forward but never came to fruition, leaving it to remain vacant for the past 25 years.
The choice to tear down Hotel du Lac was formally announced to AFP at the close of August by Hadi Alfitory, head of the Libyan public investment fund Lafico.
He declared that the structure had deteriorated into “a ruin” and warranted demolition.
Mr Alfitory confirmed he had secured all required permissions from Tunisian officials for the teardown, according to the Middle East Eye.
The outlet states that a $150m (£110m) retail complex and a fresh 20-storey upmarket hotel that will preserve the same vision and design as the original structure will be built on the site.
A campaign to preserve the hotel, which appears to have been launched without success, has garnered over 3,000 signatures.
“The City of Tunis would be remiss to demolish this symbolic structure. With this petition, we call on the Mayor of Tunis to step in immediately and STOP any plans for its DEMOLITION. The City must come to see the opportunity that repurposing the space holds – maybe as a museum, an innovation space, or a conference center – the location could literally not be more strategic,” the description of the petition reads.
“In neglecting our rich modern and ancient history, we aren’t just losing our identity, but we are also losing economic opportunity.”
