New York City Council has approved the Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) proposal for a new 82-storey tower.

The 1,050ft (320m) mixed-use tower, designed by architect Jean Nouvel, will be on West 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, the same Manhattan block on which the museum already has its main exhibition area. MoMA says the museum will gain around 40,000sq ft (3,716sq m) of new gallery space, a 30 percent increase. The building plan also calls for 150 residential apartments and 100 hotel rooms.

A spokesman for the tower's developer has said that no decision had been taken so far on when the project would get under way, or how long it would take to build. The plan is not without its critics, who point out that the structure - whose height has been cut from the 1,250ft (381m) originally proposed - would dwarf those buildings around it.

MoMA opened in November 2004, with architect Yoshio Taniguchi creating a series of galleries and public spaces designed to allow the museum to tell the story of modern and contemporary art in an entirely new context.