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Evaluating: How to Evaluate and Nominate Designed Historic Landscapes, National Regi... Page 6 of 8 <br />period(s) of significance, it must retain enough or have restored enough of the essential <br />features to make its historic character clearly recognizable, and these features should be <br />identified. <br />The clearest evaluation of integrity is based on the presence of identifiable components of <br />the original design. To evaluate the historic integrity of a designed landscape, it is useful to <br />compare the present appearance and function of the landscape to its historical appearance <br />and function. The relationship between present function and that intended or actually in use <br />during the period of significance may also affect the integrity of a designed historic <br />landscape. An area that was designed for passive recreation may have suffered a loss of <br />integrity if it has been converted for active play such as baseball. On the other hand, an open <br />meadow within a large estate or institutional grounds may survive an adaptive use to a golf <br />course without loss of integrity if its open design qualities remain dominant. Conversions of <br />designed landscapes to agricultural or forest uses may also seriously affect historic integrity, <br />although the existing landscape remains scenic. <br />The features to be evaluated should also be considered in terms of survival, condition, and <br />appropriateness to the original design intent and period of significance. Such features <br />include grading, rock formations, water bodies, road networks, and paths. Such elements are <br />relatively stable and their integrity can be addressed in much the same way that one would <br />analyze the integrity of a building. Some additions dating from a period later than the period <br />of significance but that retain the spirit of the original design, such as a rusticated concrete <br />wall extension of an original stone wall, may have achieved significance of their own over <br />time. Site furnishings such as benches, urns, and street lights are particularly vulnerable to <br />periodic change; although their presence may strengthen the integrity of the designed <br />historic landscape, their absence when the special integrity of the designed landscape is <br />intact does not necessarily mean ineligibility. <br />Vegetation, another important feature of most landscapes, is not stable. It is always <br />changing - -by seasonal cycles, maturation, pruning, removal, neglect, and other forces. If one <br />first determines that the more stable elements of the designed landscape are sufficiently <br />intact to represent the original design intent, then it can be determined whether the existing <br />vegetation taken as a whole reinforces or supports the original design intent. A bare site that <br />was once heavily groved, for example, usually would be considered ineligible. Less dramatic <br />changes in vegetation might not disqualify a site on the question of integrity. A designed <br />historic landscape need not exist today exactly as it was originally designed or first executed <br />if integrity of location and visual effect have been preserved. Originality of plant materials <br />can increase integrity but absence of original materials does not automatically disqualify a <br />designed landscape. The absence of original vegetation may not diminish integrity, for <br />example, if the same or similar species of appropriate size have been replanted to replace <br />dead, diseased, or mature specimens. A boulevard that has lost its original trees but where <br />appropriate new street trees have been planted may retain integrity. Some later vegetation, <br />especially specimen varieties, may also possess significance in its own right regardless of its <br />relationship to the original design or implementation. <br />Condition will play a significant role in evaluating integrity. Such categories as excellent, <br />good, fair, deteriorated, and severely deteriorated applied to individual features may assist <br />the researcher in making a final judgment about the overall condition, and thus the integrity, <br />of the property. Plant materials that are diseased, overmature, or have been subjected to <br />excessive pruning or other improper treatment, as well as areas where there is extensive soil <br />erosion, may diminish a landscape's integrity. Condition, of course, is reversible; in many <br />htfn• //u nneanv/ RR /nublications /bulletins /nrbl8 /nrbl8 5.htm 2/28/2014 <br />