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Site of Reversible Destiny Yoro

Arakawa ShusakuMadeline Ginsland artYoroexperimental architecture

Gifu · Yoro

35.2829°N, 136.5513°E

Arakawa Shusaku and Madeline Gins spent their careers arguing that architecture had made human beings too comfortable and, in doing so, was killing them. This park, opened in 1995, is the argument built at full scale: a vast bowl in the ground with tilted floors, a landscape you cannot cross without paying attention to every footfall, and a building turned inside out and buried upside down in the slope.

It is disorienting in a way that photographs cannot convey, and the park lends helmets and shoes free of charge, which tells you what to expect. People fall over. That is not a design failure but the stated intention — the pair believed that being made to think about balance was, literally, life-extending. It costs ¥850, closes on Tuesdays, and is the strangest place in Gifu by a wide margin.

Essential Information

Opening Hours

9:00 AM – 5:00 PM | Last entry 4:30 PM

Closed: Closed Tuesdays, or the following day when the Tuesday is a public holiday | Closed 29 December – 3 January

Entrance Fee

¥850 adults | ¥550 high school students | ¥350 elementary and junior high school students | Free under school age

Best Season

Year-round | Avoid wet days — the surfaces are slippery

Visit Duration

90 minutes – 2 hours

Getting There

Access Information

Takabayashi 1298-2, Yoro, Yoro District, inside Yoro Park. About 15 minutes on foot from Yoro Station on the Yoro Railway, or by car with parking in the park. Open 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM, last entry 4:30 PM. Closed Tuesdays, or the following day when the Tuesday is a public holiday, and 29 December – 3 January. Admission ¥850 for adults, ¥550 for high school students and ¥350 for elementary and junior high school students; free under school age. Helmets and shoes are lent free of charge.

Insider Guide

Premium

**Borrow the helmet and the shoes.** Both are free and both are there because people fall. Refusing them is not a display of confidence, it is a bad idea on uneven concrete. **Wear something you can move in.** Steep slopes, tilted floors and low openings. Skirts and stiff-soled shoes make the whole site unusable. **Falling is the point.** Arakawa and Gins argued that architecture which removes all effort shortens life. Being forced to concentrate on balance is the intended experience, not a hazard they failed to design out. **Closed Tuesdays.** With a public holiday shift. Yoro Park around it, including the waterfall, is open regardless and is free. **Combine with Yoro Falls.** The 32 m waterfall in the same park has its own legend and is a fifteen-minute walk up, which makes the trip a half day.

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