Aart Oxenaar (1958) studied art history and archeology at the University of Amsterdam. With the support of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, he has conducted research into the work of P.J.H. Cuypers. He has worked for the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam as a writer and exhibition maker, and was the Founding Coordinator of the Centre for Architecture and Urbanism in Tilburg. Since 1998 he has been Director of the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. He is active as an advisor in the field of architecture and planning, as a member of the IJburg Quality Team and chairperson of the Committee for Building Quality and Monuments in Amsterdam and serves on the Advisory Board for Spatial Quality in Haarlem. In addition to his work as an architectural historian, with a focus on the nineteenth century, he has published on contemporary architecture in the Netherlands. In 2010 he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam with an extensive publication on the architect Pierre Cuypers, celebrated designer of the Central Station and Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, entitled P.J.H. Cuypers en het gotisch rationalisme (NAi Publishers, Rotterdam).
Since January 2015 he is director Monuments and Archaeology of the city of Amsterdam.
The theme open for multiple interpretations – in relation to design and heritage mostly from the perspective of urban development. The effect of changes in access and accessibility through redesign, as exemplified by four (recently) redesigned urban spaces in the historic urban structure of Amsterdam. Disscusions on architectural transformations (including re-use and re-design of protected monuments) as a result of these changes. The term ‘accessibility’ in relation to heritage and design. And how the transformation process of heritage sites is organized in the city of Amsterdam.