It's one of the most iconically cheesy moments in film: when Rocky Balboa, at the climax of one of his many training montages, runs up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and victoriously punches the air. But now the many recreators of the moment could be disappointed, as there are plans to potentially disrupt the majestic sweep of stairs.

Frank Gehry, whose designs for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Walt Disney concert hall, in Los Angeles, have made him one of the world's most celebrated architects, has been tasked with freshening up the art museum – and one of his possible designs sees a portion of the stairs being taken out and replaced with a large window into the galleries.

"We need to improve the relationship of the museum with the city," said board member Mark Rubenstein. "It's a city museum, yet for some reason it's blocked off from the city. The city can't see in, and people who view art can't see out … [it] scares the hell out of people in the city. And we have to get over that."

The design proposal is just an initial idea, and Gehry has stressed that there are "10 different ways to do it. It's not a done deal by any means." The renovations to the museum are divided into two phases, and the alteration to the steps are part of phase two, which could be decided on years from now. The building isn't going to feature Gehry's signature metallic swoops or texturing, but retain much of its classical grandeur. "I don't think you need architectural flourishes," Gehry said. "I like that you'll pass by and not know Frank Gehry was there."

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After failing to scale the steps at the outset of Rocky, the boxer, played by Sylvester Stallone, succeeds later in the movie. In Rocky II he runs up them again, this time flanked by scores of ecstatically screaming children. He ascends them in a more low-key manner with his own son in Rocky V, and in the snow many years later for 2006's Rocky Balboa. A statue of Balboa was erected at the top of the steps for Rocky III, but was later relocated to an area near the bottom.

Stallone wrote eloquently about the steps – and the art museum's impenetrability – in Michael Vitez's book Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope, and Happiness at America's Most Famous Steps. "The steps were like this magical area, like this intellectual bastion that I would only look at from afar," he said. "It almost seemed like another city, like the Acropolis … he really doesn't even understand what's inside, but only what it represents."