The maze represents a significant spatial typology within the formal gardens of Western classicism. Its formal origins can be traced back to choreographic ritual symbols from antiquity, which later frequently appeared as sacred geometric patterns in medieval religious spaces, and ultimately evolved into a spatial feature within aristocratic gardens during the Renaissance. Although diverse cultural types of maze spaces existed across different periods and regions in the West, they all share commonalities in spatial formal composition and experiential engagement. Post-Renaissance garden mazes transformed these planar formal commonalities into three-dimensional labyrinthine spaces that offer more profound landscape experiences. Drawing upon materials such as mythology, dance, painting, architecture, and garden imagery, and employing research methodologies including iconology, cross-referencing of historical, sources, and diagrammatic analysis, this study examines the constitutive mechanisms of maze spatial forms from three perspectives: the origins and evolution, typological variations, and essential components of Western maze culture. It interprets the historical, conceptual, and the significance of spatial experience inherent in the maze. The research aims to provide specific design references for contemporary landscape practice and to contribute to deepening the comparative study of Chinese and Western gardens, particularly regarding the cultural experience and perception of this distinctive spatial type. The maze's foundational form derives from ancient ritual dances, where patterned movements inscribed symbolic trajectories onto the ground, serving as early spatial representations of cosmological or spiritual narratives. During the medieval period, these forms were assimilated into Christian contexts, most notably as pavement labyrinths in cathedrals, such as the renowned example at Chartres. These functioned as sites for symbolic pilgrimage, condensing a spiritual journey into a compact, contemplative physical path. The transition to the Renaissance witnessed the secularization and aestheticization of the maze. Integrated into the elaborate designs of expansive gardens, such as those at the Villa d'Este or Hampton Court, it became an instrument of courtly leisure, allegory, and demonstration of humanist control over nature. The spatial experience shifted from devotional meditation to one of amusement, disorientation, and eventual discovery, often imbued with metaphorical meanings related to love, fate, or knowledge. Despite varying contextual interpretations - sacred, symbolic, or recreational - the core formal principle of the maze remained a single, non-branching but intricately coiling path leading to a center. This unicursal model emphasizes process and journey over puzzle-solving. However, later developments, especially the hedge maze, introduced multicursal layouts with dead ends and choices, thereby emphasizing confusion, decision-making, and playful challenge. This evolution from a unicursal ritual path to a multicursal recreational puzzle marks a significant shift in spatial experience. The study analyzes the maze's formal constituents: the path (its width, texture, and modulation by planting or walls), the nodal points (turns, decision points, or centers), and the vertical boundaries (hedges, walls, or terraces) that define the sensory experience of enclosure, revelation, and surprise. The interaction between the predetermined geometry of the plan and the kinesthetic, perceptual, and psychological experience of the user is central to its spatial mechanism. In conclusion, the Western maze constitutes a rich palimpsest of cultural meanings encoded in spatial form. By deciphering its historical layers and operational logic, this research seeks to abstract transferable principles of path sequencing, perceptual manipulation, and narrative spatialization. These insights can inform contemporary landscape architecture, offering strategies for creating immersive, sequential, and meaningful spatial journeys. Furthermore, a structured understanding of the maze provides a concrete framework for cross-cultural comparison, illuminating how different traditions conceive of, design, and experience manipulated ritual or recreational pathways, thereby enriching the discourse on global garden history and spatial culture.