Scholar specializing in civil engineering. Son of Takashi Furuichi, a samurai of the Himeji clan. He studied at the Kaiseijo and Daigaku Nanko (later University of Tokyo). He was dispatched to France as the first overseas student of the Ministry of Education in 1875. After returning to Japan in 1880, he served at the Engineering Bureau of naimusho(the Home Ministry). He became professor and concurrently president of the Engineering College of the Imperial University in 1886. He received his Doctor of Engineering degree in 1888. He was appointed the director general of the Engineering Bureau of the Home Ministry and was selected as a member of the House of Peers by Imperial command in 1890. He was involved in a number of river works and construction and repair works of ports and harbors all over Japan. He was instrumental in the modernization and administration of civil engineering. He assumed the post of Minister and Commissioner of the Ministry of Communications in 1900, president of the Seoul-Pusan Railways in 1903 and director of Railway Supervision Bureau of Resident General in Korea in 1906. He became the first president of Doboku Gakkai (Japan Society of Civil Engineers） in 1914 and thereafter, he served as the director of Rikagaku Kenkyujo (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research), president of Gakujutsu Kenkyu Kaigi, President of the World Engineering Congress and chairperson of Maison Franco-Japonaise. During this period, he was appointed privy councillor in 1924.