Wooden historic buildings have long occupied a theoretical blind spot within the international heritage conservation framework. Modern conservation principles—particularly the concept of “authenticity”—emerged primarily within Europe's stone-dominated cultural context, implicitly premised upon assumptions of “material durability” and “formal stability”. Wooden structures, however, exhibit cyclical renewal, high replaceability, and strong craft dependency, their modes of continuity fundamentally diverging from stone-built architecture. Applying the concept of “authenticity” directly to timber-framed systems inevitably generates theoretical contradictions. This study examines the timber-framing traditions of Italy and China, exploring how different cultures reinterpret authenticity within the timber-framing context through three perspectives: conceptual responses, structural logic, and joint construction and restoration practices.