The upside down hotel said to have inspired the sandcrawler vehicle of the Star Wars

By Neil RickardsFlickr: 004648, CC BY 2.0, Link

The Hotel du Lac in Tunis was designed in the Brutalist style by the Italian architect Raffaele Contigiani and built from 1970 to 1973. It was constructed on 190 reinforced concrete piles up to 60 m (200 ft) deep, and built from exposed concrete around a steel structure, creating a single long block with ten floors, with large windows. Projecting cantilevered stairs at each end create an inverted pyramid shape. The striking design, departing from traditional Arab and European architecture, made the hotel a symbol of modernism in Tunis. Its distinctive shape has prompted comparisons with the sandcrawler vehicle of the Star Wars films. The hotel closed in 2000. It was bought by the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company (LAFICO) in 2013, which proposed demolishing the building and spending up to $100m to replace it with a new five-star hotel tower. Concerns about imminent demolition were raised again in 2019.
info: Wikipedia

By Houssem AbidaOwn work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

By The original uploader was Taguelmoust at French Wikipedia. – Transferred from fr.wikipedia to Commons by Moumou82., Attribution, Link

George Lucas filmed part of the original Star Wars movie in Sahara desert, in Tunisia, and some believe he may have modelled the Sandcrawler, a fictional transport vehicleh featured in the movie, on the Hotel du Lac.

A screenshot of a Sandcrawler vehicle from Star Wars (1977) – By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, Link

By Stefan KrasowskiFlickr: Algeria Tunisia Libya 025, CC BY 2.0, Link

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2 thoughts on “The upside down hotel said to have inspired the sandcrawler vehicle of the Star Wars

  1. Bellissime e inusuali foto, molto apprezzate
    Buona serata e un saluto,silvia

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