Tunisia's iconic brutalist Hotel du Lac demolished after years of debate

The legendary Hotel du Lac in Tunis, a brutalist inverted-pyramid structure built between 1970 and 1973 by Italian architect Raffaele Contigiani, is being demolished starting August 15, 2025. The ten-story hotel, once a symbol of post-colonial Tunisia, had been abandoned and in ruins for decades. Despite efforts by the Edifices et Memoires group and the Tunisian Ministry of Cultural Affairs to preserve it as architectural heritage, a court order mandated demolition due to imminent danger. The site will be replaced by a new hotel, shopping center, and cultural complex proposed by the Libyan Foreign Investment Co, which owns the land. Construction is not expected to begin until at least the second half of 2026. The hotel's possible connection to Star Wars—as inspiration for the Sandcrawler—was dismissed by Oscar-winning set designer Roger Christian, who credited concept artist Ralph McQuarrie. Architect Mohamed Zitouni had called the building "one of the rare post-independence Tunisian edifices demonstrating vision and maturity."