Foster + Partners has revealed its plans to add a large overhanging rooftop extension to the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, as part of its renovation of the institution in northern Spain.
The addition to the building is intended to enhance the institution's "unique identity", and will contain a mix of gallery spaces and public viewing platforms.
It will form part of Foster + Partners' wider overhaul of the museum with local studio LMU Arkitektura, which will also see the restoration of several original elements of building that was built in 1945.

"We are delighted to have this opportunity to create a major new extension and remodel the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum," said Norman Foster, founder of Foster + Partners.
"Our design will restore the existing mid-twentieth century building and setting to its original glory, create a new publicly accessible atrium space and add major new galleries for contemporary art in a floating pavilion." Foster + Partners and LMU Arkitektura's design is the winning bid in a competition that invited studios from around the world to "to write a new chapter in the life of the institution".

The proposal was selected from five other shortlisted entries by BIG, Snøhetta, SANAA, Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos and Rafael Moneo, and will mark museum's third major renovation, following an extension in 1970 and another in 2001 on which LMU Arkitektura also worked.
The overhaul of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum was designed to re...