# Hedge Maze (迷路園)

> The garden of play, its paths woven from hedges. Since Hampton Court's trapezoid, the tradition of designing being lost as entertainment — a spatial puzzle.

- IndexStyle No.413 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/maze-garden
- Kind: Layout · Family: Garden Styles · Era: 16th century–
- Mood: Play, Exhilaration, Intimacy
- Color cues: #e9e6dd / #67635d / #171615 (cues taken from reference works, not a fixed palette)

## Defining characteristics

- Hedge-walled paths
- A figure revealed from above
- Designed dead ends
- The goal at the center

## Best used for

- Comparing primary sources and canonical works
- Extracting principles that transfer to other media

## Research method

This entry records a historical style; derive the treatment from its sources rather than a fixed recipe:

- Observe the letters, signs and scale of reference works
- Extract the one structure that governs gaze and information
- Verify the materials and behaviors specific to era, region and process

## What to avoid

Don't reduce it to surface signs. Verify the context of era, region, technology and makers.

## Application checklist

Before calling a piece an application of this style, check it against the defining characteristics:

- [ ] Hedge-walled paths
- [ ] A figure revealed from above
- [ ] Designed dead ends
- [ ] The goal at the center
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Topiary (トピアリー)** — Plant sculpture: evergreens clipped into geometry and beasts, with decades of growth built into the design — the slowest of all sculptural techniques. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/topiary
- **French Formal Garden (フランス式整形庭園)** — The garden Le Nôtre perfected at Versailles: axis, symmetry and perspective, nature disciplined into geometry by shears and water — power made visible as spatial order. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/french-formal-garden

## Further study

- the Hampton Court maze
- church floor labyrinths
- maze-design algorithms

## Reference works

- ハンプトン・コートの迷路（CC BY-SA 2.0） — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hampton%20Court%20hedge%20maze.jpg
- 迷路の平面図 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hampton%20Court%20maze.svg

## Source of record

- Historic Royal Palaces — Hampton Court Palace — https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/maze-garden
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/maze-garden/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compose_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)

## 日本語

生け垣で通路を編む遊戯の庭。ハンプトン・コートの台形迷路以来、「迷うこと」自体を娯楽として設計する空間パズルの伝統。

特徴: 生け垣の通路／俯瞰で現れる図形／行き止まりの設計／中心への到達
注意: 表面的な記号へ還元せず、時代・地域・技術・制作主体の文脈を確認する。