Rational design of organic and metal building blocks has successfully enabled the genesis of variety of coordination polymers or metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that are of fundamental scientific importance as well as provide a myriad of practical applications including catalysis. Our aim to design new MOFs is the utilization as ‘precursors’ to synthesize new nanostructured materials, which cannot be achieved by conventional synthetic methods. Since MOFs are composed of organic and inorganic part, well-tailored MOFs can be transformed to metallic/metal oxide nanomaterials or carbon-based materials under appropriate reaction conditions. To understand and develop this “transformation chemistry”, in-depth understanding of coordination chemistry is of crucial importance. In this talk, we present novel synthetic strategies that exploit a MOF-driven, self-templated route towards nanoporous metal oxides and graphitic carbon materials via thermolysis and their interesting applications.