Raffaele Contigiani

He qualified as an architect in 1947 and designed pavilions for the Italian Chamber of Commerce in the 1950s and 1960s.

Among these were pavilions for the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Libya and Tunisia in the 1950s[1] and three at the Zagreb trade fair in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

[2] He was a consultant to the Italian television broadcaster RAI[1] and with Mario de Renzi and Renato Avolio de Martino designed the RAI Auditorium in Naples which was built between 1958 and 1963.

[3] Among his notable works is the Hotel du Lac in Tunis (1970–1974) which he designed in a brutalist style[1] and has been seen as symbolic of the modernisation of Tunisia in the 1970s.

[5] However, British director and set designer Roger Christian has said that the sandcrawler was designed by Ralph McQuarrie before Star Wars director George Lucas visited Tunisia.