A process and apparatus are described for rapidly drying a wet, porous gel monolith of glass or ceramic, at subcritical temperatures without inducing any cracking of the gel. The wet gel is immersed in a liquid solvent in a chamber, and the liquid solvent is then heated and expelled from the chamber. Further heating, with or without the presence of a flowing inert gas, fully dries the wet gel. When an inert gas is used, the gas is delivered to the chamber with a controlled solvent partial vapor pressure, to correspondingly control the driving force for drying the gel.