A couple of weeks ago I asked if anyone could confirm my suspicion that Nouvel’s Agbar Tower was indeed in the background of Revenge of the Sith. Well, reports have begun to trickle in and it seems that I was not mistaken, that it really is there. Although as reader, N. Verzivolli points out, it was not in Naboo but Alderaan:

“Apparently, when George Lucas was coming up with ideas for designs of the civilizations of this film, he wanted Alderaan to appear to be like the most “advanced civilization there was in that galaxy” but that they were still very in tune with nature, thus the high tech
skyscrapers in the alps, as was seen in the movie. I think maybe what happened is that one of the designers on the film had seen the Torre Agbar somewhere, and decided to incorporate a variation of it into the film, because it really does look like it.”

As we all know Alderaan is blown to pieces by the Death Star in Episode Four, a long long time ago. Which makes Nouvel’s blatant historical referencing a little disappointing.