Shinshu University Faculty of Textile Science and Technology

A Silk College That Became a University Faculty

Shinshu University Faculty of Textile Science and Technology (信州大学繊維学部, Shinshū Daigaku Sen'i Gakubu) is a faculty of Shinshu University in Tokida, Ueda City, Nagano Prefecture, founded in 1910 as Ueda Sericultural College, and three buildings on its Ueda campus, the auditorium, the museum and the gatehouse, are each listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property.

The university describes it as the only faculty in Japan with "textiles" in its name. It has occupied the same ground in Tokida for more than a century, and all three listed buildings date from the years when the school was still Ueda Sericultural College (上田蚕糸専門学校, Ueda Sanshi Senmon Gakkō), a place for training specialists in silkworm rearing and silk reeling.

The district name 常田 is read Tokida. The auditorium is addressed as 3-15-1 Tokida and the museum and gatehouse as 3-480 Tokida, but all three stand on the one campus.

How the College Came to Ueda

According to Shinshu University's own history, the idea came from Nagano Prefecture, which petitioned the national government for a sericultural college at a time when silk was one of Japan's most important industries. Towns across the prefecture competed to host it, and Ueda won. Ueda Sericultural College was established on 26 March 1910. The faculty counts it as the first institution of higher education devoted to sericulture and the first government school of any kind in Nagano Prefecture.

Its first principal, Harizuka Chōtarō, had chaired the founding committee from 1908 and then ran the college for 28 years, from 1910 to 1938. Another committee member, Miyoshi Yonekuma, also taught there. A weeping mulberry that he is said to have brought back from France still grows on the campus.

The school was renamed Ueda Textile College in 1944 and became the Faculty of Textile Science and Technology when Shinshu University was created in 1949. Its farm, cleared in 1911 to grow mulberry for practical training, once covered about half the grounds; the university says some 480 varieties of mulberry are still cultivated there.

The Three Registered Buildings

The buildings were registered in two stages. The auditorium came first, on 2 September 1998 (Heisei 10). The museum and the gatehouse followed together on 21 June 2013 (Heisei 25).

• Auditorium (former Ueda Sericultural College Auditorium): completed in 1929 (Showa 4), wooden, 2 storeys, sheet-metal roof, building area 357 square metres. Registered as a building that has become a model of design.
• Museum (former Ueda Sericultural College Cocoon Storehouse): late Meiji period, brick, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 67 square metres. Registered as a building that contributes to the historic landscape.
• Gatehouse (former Ueda Sericultural College Gatekeeper's Lodge): 1912 (Taisho 1), wooden, single storey, sheet-metal roof, building area 24 square metres. Registered on the same landscape criterion as the museum.

The museum is the oldest of the three. It began as a cocoon storehouse, and the university calls it the oldest structure on campus. Sources differ by a year on its date: the Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives 1910 (Meiji 43), while university publications say it was completed in 1911 (Meiji 44). The gatehouse is, in the university's words, the second-oldest building on the site, and the auditorium arrived 17 years after it.

Finding Them on Campus

The three buildings are spread across the grounds. The Agency for Cultural Affairs places the gatehouse just north of the main gate and the museum a little north of the centre of the campus. The gatehouse is the first thing you pass on the way in; the auditorium and the museum lie further inside.

On the faculty's campus map the auditorium and the museum are marked as nationally registered properties, and the gatehouse appears under its present name, the security office (警務員室, keimuin-shitsu). Also on the grounds is the former Chikuma Kaikan, an alumni hall built in 1935 (Showa 10) for the college's 25th anniversary and designated a cultural property by Ueda City.

The faculty's suggested walking route for prospective students takes in the auditorium and then the museum, and that order works well for anyone hoping to see all three: in through the main gate past the gatehouse, on to the auditorium, then the museum.

Visiting and Getting There

The Ueda campus is a working place of teaching and research. As of October 2026 the university's public information gave no regular opening schedule for the interiors of the three buildings. The auditorium is still used for graduation ceremonies and academic conferences, and the museum, which displays material dating back to Ueda Sericultural College, is part of the tour at the faculty's open campus events. Visitors at other times should expect to look at the exteriors and keep clear of classes and campus events.

The nearest station is Ueda, served by the Hokuriku Shinkansen, the Shinano Railway and the Ueda Electric Railway; the Shinkansen from Tokyo takes about 1 and a half hours. The university recommends walking: about 20 minutes, or 1.4 kilometres, from the Oshiro (castle) exit. By bus, take a Chikuma Bus bound for Maruko and Kakeyu from stop 1 at the Oshiro exit, ride about 3 minutes to Aeon Ueda-mae, then turn left at the Shindai Sen'i Gakubu Iriguchi junction and walk about 200 metres, roughly 3 minutes. A taxi from the Oshiro exit takes about 5 minutes.

Drivers can leave the Joshin'etsu Expressway at Ueda-Sugadaira, about 4 kilometres away. The university's directions turn at the Kami-Tokida junction on Prefectural Road 79, from which the main gate is about 100 metres on. No visitor parking is advertised.

A Note on the Names

The Agency for Cultural Affairs lists each building under its current name with its college-era name in brackets: the auditorium as the former Ueda Sericultural College Auditorium, the museum as the former Cocoon Storehouse (貯繭庫, chokenko), and the gatehouse as the former Gatekeeper's Lodge (門衛詰所, mon'ei tsumesho).

Shinshu University has registered buildings on other campuses too, including the former Nagano Prefectural Office book storehouse on the Nagano (Education) campus and a former army forage store on the Matsumoto campus. Those stand in other cities and are separate from the Ueda group.