Evaluating Resources
Evaluating a Historic Place – criteria of significance
Alberta Tourism, Parks, Recreation and Culture has identified core criteria for use in evaluating potential historic resources. The criteria exist to help in the determination of what resources are truly historically significant, and which will qualify for designation as a Municipal Historic Resource and listing on the Alberta and Canadian Registers of Historic Places.
Simple association with one or more significance criteria is not sufficient. The association must be compelling and documented for a resource to be considered for designation. A resource is not eligible if its associations are speculative.
To be eligible for consideration, an historic place should be on its original location, at least 50 years of age, meet at least one of the following criteria of significance and posses integrity:
A. Theme / Activity / Cultural Practice / Event
This criterion recognizes resources associated with single events, such as the arrival of the railroad, or with a pattern of events, repeated activities, historic trends or themes, such as the rise to prominence of the oil and gas industry. Significance relating to cultural practice is derived from the role a resource plays in historically rooted beliefs, customs, and practices.
B. Institution / Person
The resource is usually associated with an institution or person's productive life, reflecting the time period when he, she or it achieved significance. In some instances this may be a person's home; in other cases, a business, office, laboratory, or studio may best represent their contribution. A resource associated with an individual's formative or later years may also qualify if it can be demonstrated that the person's activities during this period were historically significant or if no resources from the person's productive years survive. Length of association is an important factor when assessing several properties with similar associations.
C. Design / Style / Construction
To merit municipal designation because of significance under this criterion, a resource must satisfy at least one of the following conditions:
Embody the distinctive characteristics of a style, type, or method of construction. This is the portion of Criterion C under which most resources are eligible, for it encompasses all architectural styles and construction practices:
- The pattern of features common to a specific architectural style, type, or method of construction;
- The individuality or variation of features that occurs within that architectural style, type, or method of construction;
- The evolution of that architectural style, type, or method of construction.
OR
Represent the work of a master
A master is a figure of generally recognized greatness in a field, a known craftsman of consummate skill, or an anonymous craftsman whose work is distinguishable from others by its characteristic style and quality. The resource must express a particular phase in the development of the master's career, an aspect of his or her work, or a particular idea or theme in his or her craft.
OR
Express high artistic values
High artistic value may be expressed in many ways, including areas as diverse as architecture, community design or planning, engineering, and sculpture. A resource is eligible for its high artistic values if it so fully articulates a particular concept of design that it expresses an aesthetic ideal. Resources considered for designation should be among the best examples of their type in a given municipality.
D. Information potential
To merit municipal designation because of significance under this criterion, a resource must have provided or have the potential to provide:
- Important information about a particular theme, event, institution or person, or about a particular type of building, structure or object that cannot be gleaned from any other sources;
- An opportunity to test a hypothesis, corroborate or amplify currently available information, or reconstruct the sequence of cultures, species or geological formations.
Certain important research questions about human history can only be answered by the actual physical material that comprises some cultural resources. This criterion encompasses resources that have the potential to answer, in whole or in part, those types of research questions.
E. Landmark / Symbolic value
To merit municipal designation because of significance under this criterion, a resource must satisfy one or more of the following conditions:
- It is particularly prominent or conspicuous and contributes to the distinctive character of the municipality;
- It has acquired special visual, sentimental or symbolic value that transcends its function or physical characteristics within the municipality.
*The criteria of significance listed above are adapted from those developed by Alberta Tourism, Parks, Recreation and Culture.
A full version of the Criteria of Significance is available for download in the publications section of this website.
Integrity Assessment
Another key process in evaluating potential historic resources at the municipal level is determining whether a place retains sufficient integrity. A place’s “integrity” is its ability to convey or communicate its significance, or heritage value. As a result, assessing the integrity of specific heritage resources can only occur after their significance has been adequately understood.
Integrity of location
- Location is the place where an historic resource was constructed or the site where an historic activity or event occurred.
- Except in rare cases, relocation destroys the relationship between a resource and its historical associations.
Integrity of design
- Combination of elements that create the form, plan, space, structure and style of a resource
- Elements:
- structural system
- form and massing
- arrangement of spaces
- pattern of fenestration
- surface textures and colours
- type, amount and style of detailing
- arrangement and type of plantings in a landscape
Integrity of environment
- Physical setting of an historic resource;
- Relationship to surrounding features, open spaces;
- Contributing features:
- topographic features
- vegetation
- simple manmade features (paths or fences)
- relationships between resources and other features or open space
- character of street, neighbourhood or area
Integrity of materials
- Physical elements that were combined or deposited during a particular time frame and in a particular pattern or configuration to form an historic resource.
- Integrity is compromised if a resource does not retain the key materials dating from its period of historical significance.
Integrity of workmanship
- Physical evidence of the crafts of a particular culture or people during any given period in history, typified by technological practices and aesthetic principles:
- plain or ornamental
- basic or sophisticated
- based on tradition or innovative techniques
- seen in all or individual parts of a resource
Integrity of feeling
- Continued ability to convey the aesthetic or historic sense of a particular period of time;
- Results from the presence of physical features that, taken together, express the resource’s historic character.
Integrity of association
- Association is a direct link between an historic resource and a significant historical theme(s), activity(s) or event(s); or an institution(s) or person(s).
- A resource retains association if it is the place where the event or activity occurred and is sufficiently intact to convey that relationship to an observer.
A full version of the Criteria of Integrity is available for download in the publications section of this website.