The fabrication of inorganic (silica), organic (polymer) and inorganic-organic (silica-polymer composite) shaped shells through surface coating of crystal templates is the subject of the present work. The fabrication process comprises controlled coating of cubic sodium chloride and truncated rhombohedral sugar crystallites with sol-gel derived silica and/or polymeric compounds in order to frame the crystallites surfaces with a thick enough shell such that the geometric shape persist after removal of the encapsulated crystal-templates by aqueous dissolution. The presence of inorganic and/or organic matter in the wrapped crystals was evidenced by IR spectroscopy, while, the dissolution process as well as the morphology of the derived 3D-shaped shells was observed by optical microscopy. (C) 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers.