Evaluating Authenticity in Heritage: A Quantitative Framework

Authenticity has long been regarded as an essential criterion for valuing heritage. While the Venice Charter presents a paradigm for international conservation policies aimed at general heritage protection, the Nara Document advances this by emphasizing the importance of authenticity with respect to context-oriented concerns. However, in both frameworks, assessment of authenticity remains a qualitative matter. In fact, current practices reveal that there are no quantitative assessment systems, which, if available, could provide measurable metrics to evaluate the level of authenticity of heritage with contextual objectivity. In this context, recently, the author, as part of a doctoral research, developed a framework referred to as the Quantitative Architecture Authenticity Metrix (QAAM) to assess authenticity of heritage buildings. It combines a quantitative metric with the cultural context to capture both tangible and intangible values, including community perceptions. This paper examines the possibility of quantitatively assessing heritage authenticity by employing this framework. The study evaluates the ability of the framework to assess and quantify authenticity by pilot testing of selected heritage buildings from different contexts. The findings demonstrate the effectiveness of the framework in quantitatively evaluating various aspects of heritage authenticity. They also provide evidence for the appropriateness and validity of the framework in evaluating authenticity of heritage.