From artificial engineered materials to metamaterials: 10th anniversary of the Rome workshops on “Metamaterials and Special Materials for Electromagnetic Applications and TLC”

Metamaterials Congress was initiated in 2007 by the FP6 Network of Excellence Metamorphose as the fusion between the series of conferences Bianisotropics and the series of the international workshops Metamaterials and Special Materials for Electromagnetic Applications and TLC. This year we celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the Bianisotropics (previously called Bi-isotropics) conference and the 10^th anniversary of the meta-workshops. In this contribution, we present a brief history of the meta-workshops and how they merged with Bianisotropics to originate the Metamaterials Congress. In particular, by using the paradigmatic example of the artificial chiral materials, we would also like to reflect the status of the research on complex media in the late 90s and in the beginning of the new century, in order to highlight the reasons behind the contemporary origin of the meta-workshops and of the network Metamorphose.