Virginia Law

In addition to determining a property's significance, the director shall also determine the property's integrity. A property has integrity if it retains the identity for which it is significant. In order to nominate a property to the National Register, the director must determine both that the property is significant and that it retains integrity. To determine whether a property retains integrity, the director shall consider the seven aspects set out here. Based on the reasons for a property's significance the director shall evaluate the property against those aspects that are the most critical measures of the property's integrity. The seven aspects are:

1. Location -- the place where the historic property was constructed or the place where the historic event occurred. In cases such as sites of historic events, the location itself, complemented by the setting, is what people can use to visualize or recall the event.

2. Design -- the combination of elements that create the form, plan, space, structure, and style of the property. Design results from the conscious decisions in the conception and planning of a property and may apply to areas as diverse as community planning, engineering, architecture, and landscape architecture. Principal aspects of design include organization of space, proportion, scale, technology, and ornament.

3. Setting -- the physical environment of the historic property, as distinct from the specific place where the property was built or the event occurred. The physical features that constitute setting may be natural or man-made, and may include topographic features, vegetation, simple man-made features such as paths or fences, and relationships of a building to other features or to open space.

4. Materials -- the physical elements that were combined or deposited during a particular period of time and in a particular pattern or configuration to form a historic property. The integrity of materials determines whether or not an authentic historic resource still exists.

5. Workmanship -- the physical evidence of the crafts of a particular culture or people during any given period in history or prehistory. Workmanship may be expressed in vernacular methods of construction and plain finishes or in highly sophisticated configurations and ornamental detailing. It may be based on common traditions or innovative period techniques. Examples of workmanship include tooling, carving, painting, graining, turning, or joinery.

6. Feeling -- the property's expression of the aesthetic or historic sense of a particular period of time. Although it is itself intangible, feeling depends upon the presence of physical characteristics to convey the historic qualities that evoke feeling. Because it is dependent upon the perception of each individual, integrity of feeling alone will never be sufficient to support nomination to the National Register.

7. Association -- the direct link between an important historic event or person and a historic property. If a property has integrity of association, then the property is the place where the event or activity occurred and is sufficiently intact that it can convey that relationship.