T he design of molecular containers represents an important component of nanotechnology and has attracted intense interest from synthetic chemists (1-4). Research on molecular containers can realistically be expected to provide highly selective sensors, sorters, and catalysts for numerous applications. A significant challenge in this area is the development of containers that are stereochemically rigid, because rigidity is the basis of sterically governed selectivity. Rigidity, however, is incompatible with much of organic chemistry, and this dichotomy is problematic because organic (and organometallic) chemistry provides the most versatile construction tools for the synthesis of molecular containers. In this contribution, we address this dichotomy, i.e., the incorporation of organic motifs into rigid frameworks. Our approach involves a hybridization of organometallic chemistry and well established precedents in the chemistry of metal cyanides.Cyanometallates are metal complexes with the general formula L l M m (CN) n . The most important cyanometallate is Prussian blue (PB), an inorganic polymer with the formula Fe 7 (CN) 18 (H 2 O) x (x ϳ 15) (5). The synthesis of this useful solid arises from the condensation of [Fe(CN) 6 ] 4Ϫ and Fe(III) salts (Eq. 1).The structure of PB may be roughly described as interconnected cubic cage subunits with Fe vertices linked by cyanide. The PB structure is in fact complicated because the otherwise idealized cubic framework is interrupted by vacancies at the metal positions, these vacancies being occupied by water molecules (6). A building block approach is inherent in Eq. 1, i.e., the use of preassembled [Fe(CN) In recent years we have developed families of molecular cyanometallate ensembles that are synthesized analogously to PB, except that our molecular building blocks are tricyanometallates wherein the three cyanide ligands are mutually cis. Half of the coordination sphere of these tricyanometallates is occupied by a strongly coordinating nondisplaceable coligand. The face-capping coligand inhibits the formation of polymers by minimizing crosslinking but still promotes the formation of three-dimensional structures, which resemble subunits of PB. Particularly effective as face-capping ligands are cyclopentadienyl, C 5 H 5 (Cp), and its pentamethyl analogue, C 5 Me 5 (pentamethylcyclopentadienyl, Cp*). In a proof of concept experiment, we showed that [CpCo (CN