Arriving at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, England, is not for those with a nervous disposition. You need a map just to find the car park. The reception is like a scene from 2001 A Space Odyssey. A circular glass lift takes you down to a long white corridor.
It's pristine, it's silent, and there's not a soul in sight. Through big white doors and there's more corridor. Eventually another lift takes you equally silently up two floors and you step up into the mezzanine.
It looks deserted. On closer inspection, some distance away is a circular desk. A receptionist is sitting there, looking out through the vast expanse of glass at the formal lake beyond, a little like a tail gunner in an old Lancaster bomber.
The building is on such a grand and modern scale, and it's so quiet that you almost expect the lake to drain in a James Bond style to reveal the brainchild of some evil madman. Apparently I wasn't the first visitor to have this sensation.
Talking to an actual person helped to curb my over-active imagination. The receptionist was the first, but by no means the last person to enthuse over her place of work. She told me she'd become something of a wildlife enthusiast, with a grandstand seat to view the swans and deer outside. She wasn't as keen on the murderous crows, mind you.
The lake, by the way, is part of a heat exchanger. The water cools the heat from the building before being used in the air-conditioning system. The whole centre aims to be environmentally friendly, with the natural light from the massive lake-front windows being another example. The 100,000 trees planted around the 62-hectare site will no doubt go some way to replacing the carbon emissions from the company's racing cars.
If the outside is impressive, the inside is breathtaking. Home to most of McLaren's 900 employees, the building is large enough to house nine jumbo jets. That rather meaningless statistic may convey the size of the Technology Centre, but it doesn't even start to describe its beauty. Clean lines, attention to detail and an open plan give you a feeling that you've entered a cathedral to motorsport. It's an impression that's reinforced by the row of cars displayed from the ancient Austin 7 to Kimi Raikkonen's latest mode of transport.