The Oslo, New York-based architecture firm Snøhetta — named after a Norwegian mountain — has been selected for the large-scale renovation and expansion of San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Snøhetta was chosen from a shortlist of architects announced this May that included Adjaye Associates, Diller Scofidio + Renfro and, most established of all, Foster + Partners. The SFMOMA expansion will be the Norwegian architecture firm’s first building on the West Coast. The museum’s director Neal Benezra admits, Snøhetta is “not terribly well known in our country, and especially not in the West.” He said the museum’s selection committee was bowled over however by Snøhetta's Norwegian National Opera and Ballet in Oslo. “When I saw it for the first time, it reminded me of Bilbao — it has that kind of impact,” Benezra said.

SFMOMA does not expect to release initial designs for the museum until spring 2011.

Read more about the museum’s expansion here.

A view of Snøhetta-designed National Opera and Ballet in Oslo.