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It would appear that the Star Wars Universe owes another debt to architecture. A reader sent in the above image with a note saying that the Hotel du Lac in Tunisia may have served as the inspiration for the Sandcrawlers used by the Jawas to travel across Tatooine. Another visit to Wookiepedia (an increasingly important Life Without Buildings resource) tells us that filming for A New Hope largely took place in Tunisia, so it’s entirely possible that this building did, in fact, have an influence on the production design. BONUS: a little trivia for you Extended Universe fans — “du Lac” was the origin of the “Dulok,” the natural enemies of the Ewoks. But wait, there’s more!

The form of the Sandcrawler also brought to mind a more contemporary building — the Casa da Musica. Admittedly, this one is a bit of a stretch, as the Rem Koolhaas-designed building, really only resembles the dessert-planet vehicle from one angle. Plus, we know that it was based on an unbuilt design for a private residence — hence the name. But is it possible that somewhere in the inner workings of Koolhaas’ mind, there exists some subconscious collection pond of sci-fi culture that gets channeled into his designs? Surely, the origins of Louisville’s Museum Plaza must be extra-terrestrial in nature.

And finally, just for good measure, Life Without Buildings would like to present the second in a series of architects thinking about spaceships: Koolhaas considers the Sandcrawler.


see also:
· Otto Wagner and the Millenium Falcon [LWB]
· What’s Up With All The Death Stars? [LWB]
· Adaptive Reuse of Crashed Starships [LWB]
· Future Megastructures and Starship Breaking [LWB]