Kéré"s growing international profile has invited increasingly monumental commissions. After Burkina Faso"s national assembly was destroyed during civil unrest in 2014, the architect was asked to envision a replacement in the country"s capital, Ouagadougou. The stepped facade of his pyramidical design offers both public space and a message of democratic openness, though the project remains on hold in the aftermath of January"s coup d"état.