The Trafalgar Great Chair Grab

I attended a talk by Tom Dixon earlier this week at HauteGREEN 2007.  Part of his talk was about this project, the Trafalgar Great Chair Grab. The thinking behind the project is that a lot of designer objects are very expensive and not affordable to many people.  Tom Dixon was attempting to give design away for free by filling Trafalgar Square in London with chairs he designed and then just inviting people to take the chairs home with them. 

This is an interesting idea in itself but what caught my attention was the second half of the scheme.  In order to fund the project he took one of the chairs and left it in a copper bath in an effort to make one 'precious' or valuable version of the chair to sell.  The idea being that one precious object would pay for the others.