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A museum dedicated to the founder of the legendary Italian car company Ferrari is being built by a British architecture firm. Work began this week on the è14m museum, which will feature a wavy yellow roof resembling the bonnet of a vintage car. It will arc over the two-storey house in which motor racing legend and car designer Enzo Ferrari was born in 1898. The museum, in the town of Modena, is being built by London-based Future Systems, which beat seven international rivals to clinch the contract.

The museum will be devoted to Ferrari's life and work and will contain vintage Ferraris, Maseratis, car engines, film footage and memorabilia. The roof will be bisected by fins, with the design inspired by the radiator of a classic Italian sports car.

The hope is that the museum, which is due to be completed in 2011, will become an iconic landmark in the northern Italian town, attracting up to 200,000 visitors a year.

It will chart the career of Ferrari, who grew up next to the metal foundry run by his father, Alfredo. He became a racing driver in the 1920s, achieving some success, before starting his own automobile company in 1929, establishing Ferraris as a design classic and becoming one of the world's most successful car designers.

He died in 1988 at the age of 90. Ferrari's famous symbol of a black horse against a yellow shield was inspired by the squadron badge of a World War One Italian flying ace, who was killed in a dogfight. The new Enzo Ferrari Museum will complement an existing Ferrari Museum at Maranello, outside Modena.