Abstract

When discussing labyrinths in architecture and urban planning, Spanish literature refers indiscriminately to complex configurations, without recognizing an idiomatic distinction between labyrinths proper, known in English as “mazes,” a confusion that arises because both terms are translated into Spanish as “laberinto.”. To clarify this situation, we distinguish between the definitions of “labyrinth” and “maze,” then apply syntactic analysis—axial maps—to archetypal structures of ‘labyrinth’ and “maze.” Next, we extract recurring patterns and then look for them in two illustrative cases of informal settlements, one in Chile and the other in Brazil. The results show that both settlements possess both typologies to varying degrees. This approach has the potential to shed new light on the analysis of informal settlements by establishing a fundamental distinction that has not yet been fully incorporated into the scientific literature, constituting a potential contribution of considerable Latin American originality.