Argelagua, Spain

Demolished 2002

 It was an amazing hand-made 3-4 story labyrinth made by a solitary artist in the 70s or 80s out of natural materials found at the site – tree branches curved into latticed passsage ways. Even though the site was only 1-2 hours drive from Barcelona, it was pretty obscure, off the side of a motorway, and quite unknown to many people who live here. My partner and I came a few times with friends when we lived in Barcelona first of all (I love labyrinths and mazes, and this one was spectacularly disorienting), and one time visiting in 2001 I bashed my head on a part of the structure, and the next day my hair started to fall out, resulting in 10 years of complete alopecia (and patches to this day). So it was really the last place I had a full head of healthy hair ;-). The story goes that it got vandalised so much (urban legend has it that people taking LSD got freaked out by being trapped in the disoriented mazes and destroyed it in a panic), that the artist decided to dismantle it. I last went looking for it in 2013, and there was only a poor shadow of the structure remaining. Fleur B.

The Olot Labyrinth was the creation of Josep Pujiula i Vila, a former textile worker, beginning in 1980. Local authorities deemed the homemade park, which was built on public land, dangerous and pushed for it to be dismantled. They succeeded in 2002 and Pujiula i Vila took apart his creation to make room for new roads. Shortly after, he began to create a similar site near his previous work, some of which survives. Pujiula i Vila died in 2016. 

The painting is based on an uncredited photograph that I found in Jo Farb Hernández’s article about Josep Pujiula i Vila.

No. 316