TUNIS: Tunisia’s brutalist landmark the Hotel du Lac — a 1970s postcard icon said to have inspired a desert-roving vehicle in “Star Wars” — is being demolished, sparking calls from architects, historians and activists to save it.
Built by Italian architect Raffaele Contigiani in central Tunis, the concrete-and-steel inverted pyramid opened in 1973 during a push to boost post-independence Tunisia’s tourism industry.
Its daring silhouette has since enraptured brutalism and modernizt architecture admirers from across the globe.
But after getting caught up in inheritance disputes and mismanagement, the hotel shut down in 2000, and its 10 floors and 416 rooms have grown decrepit since.
Tunisian historian Adnen El Ghali sees the Hotel du Lac as one of the world’s “top 10 brutalism jewels.”
