Architect Renzo Piano has landed the job of transforming a 1900s Moscow power station into a contemporary art museum.

The project – commissioned by the V-A-C Foundation, a Russian art body – involves the restoration and adaptive reuse of the industrial site in the city’s Red October district, by the banks of the Moskva River.

Piano’s plans include converting the GES2 power station’s 100m-long and 23m-high turbine hall into the main exhibition space – akin to the layout of London’s Tate Modern.

‘GES2 will become an exciting cultural destination, offering new opportunities for artists and audiences on a local, national and international level and the first major venue in the city of Moscow for V-A-C,’ Renzo Piano Building Workshop said in a statement.

A ‘welcoming’ area will be made up of an outdoor sculpture park, as well as a library, bookshop, cafe and auditorium inside. The museum’s educational area will house resident artists and host the V-A-C Foundation’s courses, workshops, and curatorial summer school.

Piano has also designed an amphitheatre, which can put on events and open-air film screenings, to be built outside the power station.

The project is expected to be complete by early 2019. It will be another cultural addition to the Red October district, which is already home to the Strelka Institute and Udarnik Contemporary Art Center.