Ronchamp Tea Tray

My interest and fascination with Le Corbusier began when, as a schoolboy, I was encouraged to collect postage stamps. I wasn't particularly interested in this, but something caught my eye - a French stamp from 1964 which showed a very strange crab-shell-like building, something quite unlike anything I had ever seen. This, I discovered later, was Le Corbusier's pilgrimage chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, at Ronchamp.
In the 1980s, I started making regular trips to France and found that many of Corb's buildings could be visited and studied at first-hand.
Thus began a personal journey of ‘Looking for Le Corbusier’ - a journey I am still on! I've always made drawings as aide-mémoires on these visits as I think by drawing something you really have to look - look very hard - at what you are seeing.

During the virus lockdown of 2020, legendary homewares designer Ella Doran set up a project called Design your own Tray, where she lent her skills to anyone with a new idea for a tea-tray. Chris sent Ella his drawing A Morning at Ronchamp and this (scroll right) is the result.

The trays are made from layers of paper from renewable sources, which is then coated with hard-wearing melamine making them durable and dish-washer safe, as well as pleasant to look at and handle. Size: 265mm x 375mm. They can be ordered from the online shop section of this website and mailed direct. Each tray is signed and dated.

The Ronchamp Tray is also available from SCP, Britain's leading design store.