Rolf and Mette Hay have spent their lives immersed in the design industry. Long before founding their internationally successful design brand in Copenhagen, both were drawn to objects and the stories and memories they carry. In their home just outside the Danish capital – a modernist house overlooking an uninterrupted expanse of sea and sky, where Wallpaper* was given exclusive access to make our film – pieces collected over the years form the backdrop to everyday life.
‘I’m a bit of a collector of items. I have boxes and boxes of things that I have found,’ says Mette, holding a cartoonish mint-green device in her hands. ‘This piece is an Alessi calculator designed by George Sowden, and this one was standing on my father’s office desk. When I saw this first time, I didn’t know that one day I would also work with George Sowden. It’s a very nice memory and something I will treasure forever.’
Mette Hay amid collected art at the couple's home outside Copenhagen, seen throughout in stills from Wallpaper’s film
Mette grew up in Herning, where her parents opened a contemporary design store when she was a teenager. After school, she would work in the shop, surrounded by design objects – an experience that cemented her love of the field. Rolf, meanwhile, entered the design industry in the early 1990s, where he came face to face with the legacy of Danish design. ‘I was very attracted to the aesthetic of Danish functionalism because it was different,’ he recalls. ‘It was simple. It was well made, but it was also very human, unlike other design movements in Europe at the time.’
These early experiences are reflected in the functional and friendly design language of Hay, the brand the couple founded in 2002 after meeting while working at Danish company Gubi. Hay became a home for their shared love of design. Over the past 24 years, it has grown into a globally recognised name, producing contemporary furniture, lighting and home accessories. Today, it operates more than 20 stores worldwide, including Hay House in Copenhagen, while its products are stocked by international retailers such as Selfridges in the UK, Le Bon Marché in Paris, La Rinascente in Milan, MoMA in New York and De Bijenkorf in Amsterdam.
‘It's still the same goal: to do great-quality design product with some of the best designers in the world, and to stay affordable in order to give as many people as possible the opportunity to buy one of our products,’ says Rolf. ‘That’s completely unchanged.’
‘Sella’ stool by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni
Their belief that products should possess an honest, playful or human quality, rather than simply being functional, is reflected in the pieces they have collected over the years. Among them are numerous objects by Achille Castiglioni, including a ‘Sella’ stool that once stood in Mette’s parents’ office and was given to her by her father for her 18th birthday. Designed by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni as a telephone stool for unconventional postures and occasional sitting, ‘Sella’ was introduced in 1957. ‘It was one of the first design icons I discovered,’ says Mette. ‘I think I like all of Castiglioni’s products – there’s such an honesty to them, and a playfulness that I really like.’
Many of the pieces are by artists and designers, including George Sowden, with whom the Hays later went on to collaborate. A painting featuring folk-inspired motifs by American artist Emma Kohlmann hangs in a stairwell. Bought from V1 Gallery in Copenhagen, it was the first of Kohlmann’s works the couple acquired. Mette was so taken with it that she later commissioned the artist to create an entire tableware collection for Hay, launched in 2025. ‘It’s been really nice to live with her art pieces in the same period as we working with her,’ she says.
Rolf Hay brings out a Hans Wegner chair to show alongside more from the couple's collection
Charles and Ray Eames’ ‘LCW’ chair for Herman Miller is another personal piece. ‘It is, in many ways, the perfect chair,’ says Rolf of the 1946 design. The green version that sits in the house is the result of a collaboration between Hay and Herman Miller, which invited the couple in 2022 to update a selection of Eames classics in a new palette of colours and materials.
Mette describes her attraction to objects as instinctual – an excitement sparked by an idea, a detail or a colour palette. ‘I feel it in my body, it’s an emotional thing’. For Rolf, defining what makes a good product is ‘actually not that complex’: usefulness and aesthetic balance form the baseline.
It was this guiding principle that led him to pieces such as the ‘Rey’ chair, designed by Bruno Rey in 1971. Describing it as simple and robust, but also beautiful, Hay teamed up with manufacturer Dietiker to relaunch the chair as part of its collection in 2022.
Similarly, the ‘Amanta’ armchair, designed by Mario Bellini in 1966, was relaunched by Hay in 2025. At the time of its introduction, the design was innovative: modular seating units comprising foam cushions embedded in tough ABS shells on castors. It was Bellini’s attempt to industrialise upholstered furniture. ‘It’s very important to dare to do things from a new perspective or approach design products in a different way,’ says Rolf. The Bouroullec brothers’ ‘Palissade’ collection for Hay – pieces of which are peppered throughout the house’s outdoor spaces – offers a more recent example. More than two years in development, its elegant electro-galvanised, powder-coated steel frames combine visual simplicity with structural strength.
‘The stuff we have collected through the years is a reflection of our life. It’s a reflection of artists we met, people we admire, people whose work we have been studying,’ says Rolf. The pieces they have chosen to live with have each been selected on their individual merits, rather than according to any grander cohesive scheme. ‘I think some people might say it’s a big mess, and maybe it is,’ laughs Rolf, ‘but we think it’s a nice mess.’
Video credits
Directed by: Sebastian Jordahn. Director of Photography: Jonas Kisielius. AC and focus puller: Sophus Tougaard Petersen. Sound recordist: Asger Midjord Rasmussen. Post production: DOMA Works. Editor: Daria Korsak. Colourist: Will Glass. Post producer: Cree Brown. Sound mix and design: Indústries Sòniques
Watch more episodes of the Wallpaper* video series, The Stuff That Surrounds You, where we're invited into the intriguing and idiosyncratic homes of creatives and makers, including Erwan Bouroullec, Michael Anastassiades, Veronica Ditting, Yasmin Sewell, and Glenn Sestig.
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