Self-assembly of 2,4,6-tripyridyl-1,3,5-triazine (tpt) subunits with arene ruthenium building blocks and oxalato bridges affords cationic triangular metallo-prisms of the type [Ru 6 (arene) 6 (tpt) 2 (C 2 O 4 ) 3 ] 6+ (arene = C 6 Me 6 and p-Pr i C 6 -H 4 Me); the unexpected double helical chirality of the metalloprisms observed in the solid state persists in solution giving rise to two different stereodynamic processes as demonstrated by NMR enantiodifferentiation experiments.The self-assembly of transition metal complexes to give discrete supramolecular architectures has been studied by several groups and is the subject of some extensive reviews. 1 Both, two-and threedimensional architectures are known, in which the metal centres or the branched ligands or a combination of both control the shape of the resulting assemblies. The simplest three-dimensional construction which involves the fewest components is the triangular prism: only five building blocks are necessary to obtain a triangular prism; two trigonal subunits, and three linear connecting units. 2 However, metal-based triangular prisms including more components 3 are known as well. If no stereogenic elements are introduced within the components of the prism and the two planar triangular subunits perfectly eclipsed, the triangular prism possesses a D 3h symmetry, and is therefore achiral. However, a slight deviation from the eclipsed conformation reduces the achiral point group D 3h to the chiral D 3 symmetry group and therefore generates ''double-rosette'' type helicity with P or M configuration. 4 Moreover, concerted rotation of some aromatic rings of the tritopic subunits creates three-bladed propeller chirality with D (clockwise) or L (counterclockwise) configuration. Whereas either or both of these stereogenic elements can easily be detected in the solid state, so far, it has been hardly observed in solution, 5 the complexes being too configurationally labile or the system being achiral in solution.Herein we report the synthesis and characterisation of two cationic triangular metallo-prisms incorporating arene ruthenium building blocks, bridged by oxalato ligands, and connected by two 2,4,6-tripyridyl-1,3,5-triazine (tpt) subunits (Scheme 1). (1) and [Ru 6 (C 6 Me 6 ) 6 (tpt) 2 (C 2 O 4 ) 3 ] 6+ (2), which turned out to be quite soluble in (CH 3 ) 2 CO, CH 3 CN and MeOH, and only sparingly soluble in CH 2 Cl 2 and CHCl 3 .The molecular structures of 1 and 2 have been solved by singlecrystal X-ray analysis of the triflate salts, for the IR and NMR data see supporting information.{ From a structural point of view, the two tpt subunits are expected to be around 5.5 Å apart, based on the Ru-Ru separation observed in 3 (mean 5.503(6) Å ). 8 Indeed, the single-crystal X-ray structure analyses of 1 and 2 reveal an average Ru-Ru separation of 5.49 Å . Surprisingly, the two central triazine units in 2 are very close. The centroid … centroid distance between the two triazine moieties is only 3.42 Å as compared to 3.83 Å in 1, where the tpt ligands adopt an...