Tokyo Polytechnic University was founded in 1923 by Rokuemon Sugiura VII, president of the company which eventually became Konica. It was initially established to teach photography and has since maintained that focus on the visual through numerous changes of title and function.
Starting as Konishi Professional School of Photography, it added Tokyo to its name three years later and acquired a university charter in 1966, but it was not until 2003 that it became Tokyo Polytechnic, its seventh title.
Ryuichiro Yoshio, its president in 2019, sees its purpose as producing graduates with an intention to create "new types of value" and cites a continuity of values dating back to 1923 when it "pioneered in combining self-expression (art) with photographic techniques (technology)".
Nicknamed "Shadai", it retains that division between faculties of arts and engineering, reflected in its two campuses, 30 miles apart.
Engineering students and those in the first two years of arts courses work on the main campus at the Atsugi Campus, at the foot of the Kanazawa mountains. Third and fourth year arts students transfer to the Nakano campus, close to Tokyo’s cultural and industrial centres for visual industries, described as "a place where next-generation artists can grow and blossom".
It was the first Japanese university to offer an undergraduate course in animation in 2003 and it created departments of anime, manga and games four years later. The engineering department hosts national research centres for high technology, wind engineering, nano-science and hyper-media research.
A review by the Japanese University Accreditation Association in 2014 noted its strength in cutting-edge research into new technologies and a strong contribution to local communities.
