Koganei Campus of the Faculty of Technology, which overcame difficulties and nurtured dreams for the future

There used to be a Keio University campus in Koganei, Tokyo.
This was before the Yagami Campus was established, when the Faculty of Science and Technology was formerly the Faculty of Technology.
In a time just about to enter the period of high economic growth, Keio students worked hard on their research at the Koganei Campus, bearing the future of Japan which was striving to become a technology-oriented country.

In April 1945, months before World War II ended, about 80% of Hiyoshi Campus was burnt down in air raids, including the building of the Faculty of Technology. In May, both the Mita and Yotsuya (presently Shinanomachi) Campuses were also badly damaged by firebombs.

After the war ended on August 15 of the same year, yoka (University Preparatory School) and each of the faculties restarted, being split in different locations such as the Noborito temporary school building in Kawasaki, which used to be an army facility, and Sannohashi temporary school building, which used the school building of a night school in Azabu rented only for the daytime.

Among the faculties, the Faculty of Technology had the most difficulties in securing a school building. Although the war ended, what were left of the buildings and dormitories of the Hiyoshi Campus were confiscated by U.S. military forces in September. Therefore, the Faculty of Technology moved to the Naval Technology Research Institute in Meguro (Meguro temporary school building) in early October, and in June of the next year, moved to a government-owned site within the plant of Nippon Kogaku K.K. (Mizonokuchi temporary school building).

The Faculty of Technology finally got out of temporary school buildings in March 1949, when it moved to a property in Koganei which was formerly used as a plant of Yokogawa Electric Corporation. There were also candidate sites in Shiki and Mizonokuchi, but considering the environment and convenience, Koganei was chosen.

The Koganei Campus was located south of which is the JR Musashikoganei station today, and the site that extended over Maehara town in Koganei City and Sengen town of Fuchu City was as large as about 60 thousand square meters (including rented land).

The buildings of the plant were renovated and were used as school buildings for the departments of Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, and classes started in April of the same year. However, this was a time after the war, and Keio University was having hard financial times, so it took time to install equipment. Since there weren't enough desks and chairs, students, together with faculty members and staffs, handmade them as engineering practice of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and placed them in each classroom. It is also said that Prof. Shigeteru Niwa, who served as Dean back then and have made great achievements during the postwar recovery period of the Faculty of Technology, pushed the roller together with Keio students to make a school ground from an area where air-raid shelters were dug up.

In 1969, 20 years from the establishment of the Koganei Campus, "Juku" featured reports on the campus.

"The gates that stand at the entrance of the site, which used to be a plant from the prewar period, looks old, and green branches of zelkova trees which symbolizes the Musashino area spreads freely towards the sky. Once you step inside the laboratory which is a renovated factory building, it was a completely different world. Laboratory tables, chemicals, scientific glassware, measuring instruments and documents were crammed together. In the simmering heat where gas burners flamed, young researchers were concentrating on their research. .. In the school building on the verge of collapse, somehow standing on its pillars, it gave an impression that the place was filled with an enormous evergy for research". ("Juku", October edition, 1969)

In an inconvenient building which was a conversion of a plant, students and faculty members worked hard in their studies and research, looking ahead for the future amid calls for technological innovation and information revolution in a period of high economic growth.

However, since it was far from Hiyoushi, where first year level students take general education courses, and since the buildings were extremely aging, demands to return to Hiyoshi started to grow. When the transfer of the Faculty of Technology to Hiyoshi Yagamidai completed in 1972, the Koganei Campus completed its main roles.

After that, part of the site was used as Koganei Ground, but by end of fiscal year of 1992, the ownership of the premises changed from Keio University, and now has become a residential area.

In 2014, the Faculty of Science and Technology will mark its 75th anniversary. It traces its beginnings to Fujiwara Institute of Technology, which Ginjiro Fujiwara used his own properties to establish in Hiyoshi Campus in 1939. Fujiwara was a Keio graduate born in 1869, a businessperson who served as the president of Oji Paper Co., Ltd. before the war, and thus was called “King of paper manufacturing”. This institute, which was promised from even before establishment to be donated to Keio University, became the Faculty of Technology of Keio University in 1944. With such a history, it was decided that the faculty be called Fujiwara Memorial Faculty of Technology in 1948.

The Faculty of Technology was reorganized in 1981 and became the Faculty of Science and Technology.