The Borges Labyrinth is located on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, Italy. It is a hedge maze named after the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. It was designed by British landscape architect Randoll Coate and inspired by Borges’ short story “The Garden of Forking Paths”. It was completed in 2011 and officially opened to the public in 2021.
The maze covers an area of approximately 2,000 square meters and is composed of 3,200 boxwood trees, with a total path length of about 1 kilometer. Its design integrates geometric lines and symbolic elements: the central area is arranged in the form of a maze to form the name “Borges”, and symbols such as mirrors, hourglasses, and question marks are embedded among the hedges, representing themes such as “the interweaving of reality and illusion”, “the infiniteness of time”, and “human confusion about the world” in Borges’ works respectively. the floor of the maze is carved in Braille with Borges’ famous saying: “A book and a labyrinth are one and the same”, echoing the writer’s philosophical thoughts on words and structure.
The construction of the maze was supported by Maria Kodama, the widow of Borges, aiming to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the writer’s death and the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Giorgio Cini Foundation. Visitors need to join the guided tour organized by the foundation to enter. Along the way, they can observe images such as “tigers” and “keys” formed by hedges, all of which are derived from Borges’ literary works. At the center of the maze, there is an observation deck. Once visitors reach the top, they can overlook the entire layout and experience the spatial structure of “bifurcated paths”, which echoes the metaphor of “infinite bifurcation of time” in the novel.
Apart from the mazes in Venice, there is also a maze of the same name (Laberinto de Borges) designed by Corte in San Rafael, Argentina. It is also inspired by “The Garden with the Paths Diverting”, but the mazes in Venice are more well-known due to their geographical location and cultural integration. Today, the Borges Maze is not only a hidden attraction in Venice but also a model of the combination of literature and garden art, attracting a large number of readers and tourists every year to explore the mystery of the interweaving of words and space.
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