In the decades since independence from France in 1956, tourism in Tunisia has been both a facilitator of modernization through national exposure, investments, and built environments, and, in turn, a reflection of the country’s modernity. Although the country’s popular seaside hotels and cultural heritage industries have received limited scholarly attention, its postcolonial urban tourism infrastructure has been largely overlooked. Indeed, Tunisia’s lucrative tourism sector and its dedication to architectural modernism intersected at the epicenter of its capital city, just twelve kilometers from its Mediterranean coast. This paper presents three major works of late modern architecture in downtown Tunis that demonstrate the status afforded to tourism by the postcolonial state and the complexities of its engagement with outsiders in a globalizing context. The structures — the Corbusian Ministry of Tourism building (begun prior to independence), the glass-clad Hotel Africa tower, and the expressive Brutalist Hôtel du Lac — materialized the modernist impulses of an independent Tunisia that, under the leadership of Habib Bourguiba, sought to balance sovereignty, development, modernization, and a progressive Arab-Islamic identity through Western-oriented tourism. They were products of global economies and creative circles, and were “locally” situated through the incorporation of tapestries, mosaics, and bas-relief sculptures designed by several of Tunisia’s most prominent artists. As landmarks on the city’s two primary boulevards, the buildings were inevitably encountered by visitors en route — and in revealing contrast — to the city’s iconic medina. Together they shed light on urban tourism infrastructure’s value in postcolonial Tunisia and the broader contextualization of late modern architecture in North Africa. This paper therefore facilitates deeper critical thinking about decolonization and identity in a country in which unique architectures of tourism simultaneously reflected and inspired particular socio-cultural and political conditions of postcoloniality.