Five pavilions made of cast glass and stone will be attached to the museum complex from the northwest, from the rear and side facades. The new spaces, which are scheduled to open at the end of 2012, will house restoration workshops, research laboratories, storage rooms, as well as a gallery of temporary exhibitions, which will replace the “reading room” in this capacity in the center of the museum courtyard, which was closed by Norman Foster's design in 2000 (of course, high-tech style).
The starting point for the project was the work of Luis Kahn. In the course of the design, under pressure from heritage protection organizations, it was decided to hide the structure clearly expressed in the original version and to make the overall appearance of the buildings more "elegant". Each of the pavilions will have 7 floors (including 3 underground). In total, the museum will receive 17,000 m2 of new space.
