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1 second to get in and at least 2 hours to find a way out. This is the unique and appealing experience that offers new and currently the biggest in the world Labirinto della Masone officially opened on June, 1 in Fontanellato, near Parma, Italy.
It is not easy to navigate there. There are really few reference points. The tall hedges look equal. The corridors are fatally 3 meters wide. And their length is always the same too. Yet, the impression is one-of-a-kind!
1 second to get in and at least 2 hours to find a way out. This is the unique and appealing experience that offers new and currently the biggest in the world Labirinto della Masone officially opened on June, 1 in Fontanellato, near Parma, Italy.
It is not easy to navigate there. There are really few reference points. The tall hedges look equal. The corridors are fatally 3 meters wide. And their length is always the same too. Yet, the impression is one-of-a-kind!
Created by the 78-years old Italian graphic designer, art publisher and collector Franco Maria Ricci, the Labyrinth is big eight hectares. The overall length of its tangled paths is about three kilometers. And the maze’s endless green fences are nothing else but a lush bamboo plantation. More precisely, over thirty species of bamboo were used to grow up this spectacular and confusing geometric wall pattern.
Why bamboo? Inspired by writings of Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino, Franco Maria Ricci has finally decided to build a labyrinth in 2004. At that time he was already 67, an age when one starts to pay attention to time in a new way. As Ricci claims in fact, if he had done his Labyrinth with the classic boxwood, he would have to wait 20 years to see it completed. Bamboo, instead, was far more appropriate and quick solution for his idea.
Why bamboo? Inspired by writings of Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino, Franco Maria Ricci has finally decided to build a labyrinth in 2004. At that time he was already 67, an age when one starts to pay attention to time in a new way. As Ricci claims in fact, if he had done his Labyrinth with the classic boxwood, he would have to wait 20 years to see it completed. Bamboo, instead, was far more appropriate and quick solution for his idea.
Thus, thousands bamboo trees of different varieties have been imported and grown for several years to be perfectly acclimatized to the environment of northeastern Italy and integrated into the local landscape. It took, however, about 10 years to complete the green preparation of this work of art and to the challenging bamboo rising.
Besides the endless green maze, Labirinto della Masone complex offers to its visitors over 5000 sq.m. of cultural spaces. The Labyrinth features in fact several evocative brick buildings. The entrance block accommodates a museum hosting the permanent private Ricci’s collection of about 500 works of art dating from the sixteenth to the twentieth century and a library dedicated to the most famous examples of typography and Italian graphics. The middle part, surrounded by portico, is a 2000 sq.m. central piazza designed for open-air concerts, events, art installations and exhibitions. Finally, the terminal part is an evocative pyramid housing a chapel. Quite an unusual solution for a catholic sanctuary.
Besides the endless green maze, Labirinto della Masone complex offers to its visitors over 5000 sq.m. of cultural spaces. The Labyrinth features in fact several evocative brick buildings. The entrance block accommodates a museum hosting the permanent private Ricci’s collection of about 500 works of art dating from the sixteenth to the twentieth century and a library dedicated to the most famous examples of typography and Italian graphics. The middle part, surrounded by portico, is a 2000 sq.m. central piazza designed for open-air concerts, events, art installations and exhibitions. Finally, the terminal part is an evocative pyramid housing a chapel. Quite an unusual solution for a catholic sanctuary.
The peculiar aspect of the overall architectural ensemble of Labirinto della Masone is it’s plan layout. Resembling the utopian idea of ideal city dating back to the age of Italian Renaissance, the Labyrinth is a Ricci’s private symbolic star-like fort suddenly cropping up somewhere in the middle of the Po Valley and surrounded by endless agricultural fields.
Indeed, for Ricci his private Labyrinth is a wonder-wander-ground. It is a mirror of our daily life. It is a miniature of troubled and puzzled experience we all live in. And, at the same time, it is a pleasant game of getting lost and finally (hopefully) finding ourselves out... Read the original article & see all pictures in my article on Inhabitat.com.
Text and pictures exclusively for Inhabitat USA by Maria Novozhilova
Follow me on twitter at @NovozhilovaM
Follow me on instagram at @MN.Blog
Text and pictures exclusively for Inhabitat USA by Maria Novozhilova
Follow me on twitter at @NovozhilovaM
Follow me on instagram at @MN.Blog