The North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, US, will open its 127,000sq ft (11,800sq m) extension to the public on 24 April.

The new single-storey building, designed by New York-based Thomas Phifer of Thomas Phifer and Partners, was created specifically to showcase the gallery's permanent collection of more than 5,000 pieces of art spanning antiquity to the present day.

Surrounded by sculpture gardens and pools, the expansion project will also transform the Museum's 1983 East Building, designed by the architect Edward Durell Stone, into a center for temporary exhibitions, education and public programmes, and public events, as well as a place for collections management and other administrative functions.

Upon completion, the 164-acre campus will be the nation's largest art museum park, with walking paths, bike trails, ecological projects conceived with artists, and site-specific commissioned works of art in a rolling green landscape.

The museum has also acquired more than 100 new works of art to celebrate the opening of the new building.

The North Carolina Museum of Art is an agency of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.