This proceedings volume contains 39 papers presented at the IUTAM Sym- posium on Variations of Domains and Free Boundary Problems in Solid Mechanics, held in Paris from April 22nd to 25th 1997, at the Ecole des Mines and the Ecole Poly technique. This symposium offered an opportunity for researchers from all engineering disciplines and applied mathematics to review the state of the art and to identify new trends and new features in the field. Mechanical modelling, mathematical discussion and numerical resolution have been the primary goals of the meeting. Principal subjects of discussion concerned ground freezing, shape memory alloys, crystal growth, phase change in solids, piezo-electricity, wavelets, delamination, damage, fracture mechanics, polymerization, adhesion, fric- tion, porous media, nucleation, plasticity, inverse problems, and topological optimization. More than 80 scientists of different nationalities participated in this sym- posium. Efforts of many people made this symposium possible. We would like to thank all the authors and participants for their contributions and the members of the Scientific Committee for their patronage and assistance in selecting papers. The effectiveness of the Organizing Committee is ac- knowledged. We are pleased to thank all the involved members of the two Laboratories : Laboratoire de Mecanique des Solides and Laboratoire des Materiaux et des Structures du Genie Civil, specially Valerie Fran