Berlin - Berlin's Jewish museum is to expand into a former flower market hall, the museum announced Wednesday. The 6000-square-metre market building opposite the museum, in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, is to be redeveloped by New York based architect Daniel Libeskind, at a cost of 10 million euros (13 million dollars).

Libeskind won praise for designing the main museum building, shaped like a jagged lightning bolt, said to resemble a broken Star of David.

"Not only will the Jewish museum thus receive urgently needed room for its research, mediation and education work," Berlin's Culture Secretary André Schmitz said.

"Berlin will also get a new Libeskind building, which we can look forward to," Schmitz added.

The German government will put 6 million euros towards the redevelopment of the flower market, built in the 1960s. The museum will fund the remaining 4 million euros.

The Jewish museum, which chronicles more than 2000 years of German-Jewish history, attracts 75,000 visitors annually.(dpa)