The Art of the Maze

by Georg Gerster and Adrian Fisher

Book Overview

One of the world's leading maze designers displays his most spectacular and complex mazes, and reveals their powerful psychological secrets, mathematical structures, and how to solve them quickly.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1841880256
• ISBN13: 9781841880259
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Cassell PLC
• Length: 162 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 9.2" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

The best introduction to labyrinth theory

As an architect interested in the design and construction of labyrinths, I have found this to be the most substantial of the resources available. This book deals with design history and theory and gives many expamples of labyrinths and their cousins, puzzle mazes. It explains the differences and the varieties in a compelling way and makes any reader want to run out and start building one.

A Worthwhile but Mistitled Book

Despite the suggestion of its title, this is not a book dedicated solely to "the art of the maze" although a sizable portion is devoted to the designs of some of the world's most beautiful mazes. For those interested in mazes it is an excellent and informative book in many ways; however, it does have a few shortcomings. The greatest of these shortcomings is the layout. Dozens of lovely large color photographs fill THE ART OF THE MAZE, but their placement is problematic. They sometimes appear pages before or after their discussion in the text, which can lead to frustrated page flipping if the reader wishes to see a depiction of something as it is being described. The sidebars containing valuable information occur haphazardly throughout the book, often popping up dead center in the text making them more of an interruption than an enrichment. There is also added confusion due to the designation of labyrinths -- the maze's forerunner and ancestor -- as a type of maze. Early on the authors distinguish between a labyrinth, which has a single winding path to its center, and a maze, which has junctions and choices and is in essence a kind of puzzle to be solved. However, labyrinths and mazes are then treated as a single entity for the rest of the book. This can be aggravating for those readers who have studied labyrinths as a phenomenon unique from mazes. If the reader can get past these sticking points, THE ART OF THE MAZE is a valuable book. It provides an excellent history of labyrinths in its opening chapter "Origins and History." Particularly enjoyable is the lengthy treatment of "The Man in the Maze" labyrinth motif found in the Tohono O'otam and Pima tribes of Arizona. The authors give keen insight into the early uses of labyrinths among past cultures. They also present the fascinating theory that labyrinths may actually be symbolic representations of mazes, which would make the maze far older than previously believed. The second chapter "The Nature of Puzzlement" introduces the different types of mazes. It even tells how to solve the simplest maze design via the "hand-on-wall" method. A fair amount of history is included in this section as well. The third chapter "Mazes in the Landscape" is undoubtedly what gave the book its name. It showcases the most famous, most beautiful, and most elaborate mazes in the world as well as the best examples of mazes for each medium from hedges to turf to wood and metal to stained glass. The incredible Alice-In-Wonderland Maze at Merritown House in Dorset, the "imprint" foot mazes at Gloucestershire and Bicton Park, and England's oldest hedge maze at Hampton Court Palace are among those featured. This section contains fantastic, full color, aerial photographs. "Mazes in the Landscape" is also the best laid out chapter, and almost all of its graphics line up with the text. The fourth and final chapter "The Riddle of the Maze" is a wrap-up chapter on the maze's appeal, offering a few idea