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Twenty years on from Genelec’s launch of the original 6040 loudspeaker model, its newly re-imagined 6040R Smart Active Loudspeaker has received an “honorable mention” in this year’s prestigious Fennia Prize design competition, with the company also picking up the IPR Excellence Prize for its work in protecting its intellectual property rights.
Introduced in 2003, the Fennia Prize is one of Finland’s most prominent design competitions. Organized by Design Forum Finland and Fennia in cooperation with the Finnish Patent and Registration Office and Elo, the bi-yearly competition awards companies and organizations that use design extensively in their business operations. Judged by an expert panel, the prize winners must demonstrate high-class design competence focusing on customer needs, innovation, design quality and sustainability.
“Genelec’s great insight was to intertwine the industrial and acoustical design of the speaker,” comments the Fennia Prize team. “Thus, art and technology design work together, complementing each other, and the result is more than the sum of its parts. Design is deep in the company’s strategy and all of its functions, having become a strong brand element and international competitive advantage.”
Genelec managing director Siamäk Naghian said, “Recognition by the Fennia Prize panel is a very welcome endorsement of our approach to design. Twenty years after its original launch, we’re proud that the new 6040 continues to receive accolades for both its class-leading audio performance and visual aesthetic. As a company, we’ve long considered sustainability to be as important as profitability and sound quality, so the timelessness of the 6040 completely embodies our design philosophy. We’re confident that our customers will still be enjoying the sound and appearance of the 6040 decades into the future.”
Genelec is not new to the Fennia Prize. The original 6040, designed in collaboration with leading Finnish designer Harri Koskinen, also achieved an honorable mention at the very first 2003 Fennia Prize awards and marked the beginning of a long and successful collaboration between Genelec and Koskinen. Koskinen’s bold, minimalist Nordic styling has influenced countless Genelec models over the last two decades, bringing a unique voice to the aesthetic of Genelec loudspeakers and subwoofers. The Fennia Prize panel recognized this collaboration in both 2009 and 2017, with awards going to the 5040A subwoofer and 8351A coaxial loudspeaker, respectively.
