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 Opened in October 1995, the Site of Reversible Destiny - Yoro Park is an "experience park" conceived on the theme of encountering the unexpected. By guiding visitors through various unexpected experiences as they walk through its component areas, the Site offers them opportunities to rethink their physical and spiritual orientation to the world.
The Site comprises a main pavilion called the Critical Resemblance House and a large, bowl-shaped basin called the Elliptical Field.
The Critical Resemblance House, which has a roof shaped as a map of Gifu Prefecture, is a convention-breaking structure offering visitors a range of intriguing perceptual and cognitive experiences. The interior, a maze-like configuration that can be entered and exited at numerous points, has household furniture—sofas, beds, kitchen sinks, and so on—arranged in corresponding pairs on the floor, under the floor, and on the ceiling.
The Elliptical Field consists of nine pavilions (each a reproduction of a segment of the Critical Resemblance House), an array of complementary mounds and hollows, five maps of varying sizes of the Japanese archipelago, and, weaving in between all of these, an intricate network of 148 paths. The largest of the Japan maps, which extends across the entire Field, is planted with 24 species of medicinal herbs that give it a gradually changing complexion from season to season.
In keeping with the overall conceptual plan put forward by the Site's creators, New York-based internationally acclaimed contemporary artist Shusaku Arakawa and poet Madeline Gins, the Site was augmented in April 1997 with the opening of the Reversible Destiny Office. The Office provides information about the Site, exhibits Arakawa's drawings and other works, and screens a high-definition television documentary tracing the progress of the Site's construction.
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