In Greek mythology, the Ship of Theseus is the ship in which King Theseus returned from Minoan Crete to Athens, where it was maintained in seaworthy condition for centuries by replacing its decayed parts with new, until eventually nothing of the original ship remained. In philosophy, the story is used as a thought experiment to prompt contemplation of the notion of identity: does an object that has had all of its original constituent parts replaced remain the same object? Does the identity lie in the form only, or also in the content?

Probably the most famous example of the ‘form over content’ approach to architecture is the Ise Jingu, or Ise Grand Shrine, in Mie, Japan, whose buildings have been dismantled and constructed anew (on adjacent sites) over 60 times going back around 1,300 years. Other than in periods of war or other disruption, reconstruction takes place every 20 years; the last in 2013 cost over half a billion dollars. The forms and details of the buildings have remained largely unchanged over the centuries, providing invaluable insights into the history and development of Japanese architecture; perhaps even more importantly, the reconstruction process also plays a crucial role in preserving and handing on the knowledge, techniques, and traditions of the various trades involved; to the form/content binary we should perhaps add a third element, process. These practical, constructional aspects are usually given less emphasis in writings on traditional architecture than are issues of ‘form’ and design theory, which is not really surprising given that most writers on traditional architecture tend to be architects and are thus understandably focused primarily on design. But the viability and even the ‘authenticity’ of traditional architecture lies as much in the hands of the tradesman it as it does in the hands of the designer.