Las Pozas is a surrealist concrete sculpture garden created by British poet Edward James, built within a lush subtropical rainforest nestled within the Huasteca Potosina region of the Sierra Gorda Mountains, in Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, Mexico. The unusual concrete garden, spanning several dozens of acres, and featuring whimsical surreal concrete structures that started to take shape in the late 1940s, was built without formal blueprints and includes staircases that lead to nowhere, towering arches, tall columns that combine Gothic and surreal designs, a labyrinth of multi-level concrete structure, interconnected cascades and pools that run around and beneath and around the concrete art pieces, and finally, all the features blend seamlessly with the eerie environment of the lush natural jungle. It is a dream world, home to a surrealistic labyrinth, containing buildings that evoke fantasy, doors that open up to nothing, stairs that lead to the sky and concrete flowers that grow along with natural ones. The hard work of more than 150 bricklayers, carpenters and gardeners helped James to materialize his vision over a period of years. However, construction was finally halted in 1984, the year James died, and seven years later the garden was opened to the public. Designated a Mexican Artistic Monument in 2012, it was acquired in 2007 by Fundación Pedro y Elena Hernández, a non-profit Mexican civil organization, established in 2002 to rescue and conserve Mexico's natural and environmental assets.

It all began in the early 1940s, when Edward James first conceived the unique idea of setting up a Garden of Eden in California, while he was spending time in Los Angeles. However, as the region appeared to be overcrowded for the project, his cousin and lifetime friend, Bridget Bate Tichenor, a surrealist painter of fantastic art in the school of magic realism, encouraged him to look for a surreal location in Mexico, the ideal place to express his diverse esoteric interests. Much later, he met Plutarco Gastélum Esquer, a Yaqui Indian photographer in 1944, while he was in Cuernavaca, a city in the state of Morelos, Mexico, and hired him as a guide. After that, in November 1945, while exploring the mountainous Huasteca region of San Luis Potosí, they discovered a pristine waterfall covered by butterflies, and being charmed by the beautiful sight, James decided to establish his dream project in the area. Finally, Edward James acquired an 80-acre abandoned coffee plantation near Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, Mexico in 1947, and registered the property under the name of Gastélum, primarily because Mexican law at the time prohibited foreigners from owning property in the country.

Initially, Edward used the dense rainforest as a safe home for around 29,000 rare orchids, along with a private zoo that contained flamingos, deer, and ocelots. However, after a highly unusual and devastating frost in 1962 damaged most of his delicate orchid collection, Edward James had to shift his original vision into creating an exceptionally permanent garden filled with surreal concrete structures that seamlessly blend into the natural jungle. While Edward provided the financial backing, grand vision, and imaginative surreal ideas, Gastélum took the responsibility of the practical leader of the project. As the administrator of the project, as well as the construction manager, he worked closely with local artisans to build over 30 large-scale architectural features, without any formal structural plans, and included impressive gates, gothic arches, columns with flower-like capitals, along with pavilions of unclear levels, and spiral staircases that suddenly end high up in the sky, as if inviting people to the horizon. Once depicted by Salvador Dali as crazier than all the Surrealists combined, Edward James created Las Pozas, a distinctive sculpture garden that resists any architectural classification and offers a glance at something fresh, swaying between fantasy and reality.

The iconic, winding, gravity-defying, multi-storey spiral structure, visible from outside the park, and called Stairway to Heaven, or Stairway to Nowhere, climbs high into the jungle canopy and ends abruptly midair, serving no functional purpose other than to invite the gaze toward the sky and horizons. However, the Bamboo Palace, originally referred to as the Tower of Hope, and envisioned as the eventual home of the creator, is perhaps the most prominent multi-storey structure in the garden, consisting of pillar-like concrete forms reaching toward the jungle canopy with an elevated plateau view. Visitors are free to climb the open platforms and negotiate the winding staircases of the tall and huge structure to take in elevated views of the dense rainforest, nearby waterfalls, and the ethereal panoramic view of the Sierra Gorda mountain range.

The Queen's Ring, featuring a large, concrete circular opening that serves as the gate of the garden, perfectly frames the surrounding jungle and the subsequent pathways. However, although named the Three-Story House that Might Be Five, or Las Casas de Tres Pisos que Podrían Ser Cisco, the particular massive surrealist concrete structure, featuring heavily reinforced concrete pillars, is actually spans five floors. Positioned next to a stream to offer wide, sweeping views of a natural 80-feet waterfall from its multiple open terraces, and emerging out of the subtropical jungle canopy, offering a wide view of the Sierra Gorda Mountains, the massive building structure was specifically designed by Edward James to host his close friend, Desmond Guinness. Unfortunately, like many other incomplete structures in the garden, this emblematic structure, featuring chimneys, also remained incomplete. Nevertheless, Cinema with No Seats is an open-air architectural arch and spiralling elements in Las Pozas, designed as a non-functional theatre overlooking the forest, while Library with No Books is another open structure blending concrete pillars and shelves into the surrounding wilderness. Apart from that, La Avenida de Las Serpientes, or the Road of the Seven Deadly Sins, featuring giant concrete mushrooms and rising snake sculptures, complete with towering concrete arches, and staircases that ascend directly into the sky, is one of the most puzzling pathways in Las Pozas, that deliberately baffles and confuses visitors, leading into a web of optional trails.

However, the process of construction at Las Pozas stopped after the death of Edward James on 2 December 1984, and the property was inherited by Plutarco Gastélum and his family, who were forced to sell off portions of the surrounding land to cover the heavy costs of maintenance, and finally, the surrealist sculpture garden was officially opened to public in 1991.