The UK pavilion's futuristic and high-tech look will help quash Chinese people's misconceptions of England as stuffy and antiquated, according to McLaren F1 driver Lewis Hamilton.

"Someone mentioned the bowler hats and all that to me. I don't know if any of you have been to London, but it is a very young and hip place," the former F1 world champion said during a tour of the UK pavilion last week, ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix.

"It's full of young people, full of life. It's just a great place to live and I think this structure shows that.

"It reminds me of the McLaren Technology Center (in Woking, England). Because it's innovative, it makes me feel it's something that our team would have built," said Hamilton, the first VIP to show up at the UK pavilion since the visit of Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

Designer Thomas Heatherwick was commissioned to come up with an idea to impress on Chinese visitors, by way of a high-impact structure, the UK's position as an advanced scientific hub.

"What a lot of people in China don't realize is that there's a lot of car manufacturing and design still going on in the UK," said pavilion spokesperson Katherine Dickson.

"Lots of people think we've declined since the 19th century, when we held the first World Expo (in 1851), but that's not the case. One of the differences now is that we've shifted to focus on producing high-tech parts."

Britain's manufacturing base took a hit with the onset of outsourcing to cheaper countries like China, but it responded by going high-end. Formula One race car driving alone, eight of the 12 teams hail from the UK. Seven of the world's 10 major carmakers have bases there.

Hamilton was equally impressed with the inside of the "Seed Cathedral" - the name given to the UK pavilion because of its startling faade - which is small compared to other pavilions and features secondary exhibitions. The idea is to encourage visitors to marvel at the spiky and eco-friendly faade of the cube, head inside for a few minutes to be further wowed, and then enjoy performances in the park outside the pavilion.

"It looks fantastic. If you look at all the spikes going in, at the end of each stem there are little seeds inside, which is unique. It looks like a lot of work has gone into this thing. It's the best building here," said Hamilton.

The UK is proud of its history of innovation, having produced great thinkers such as Newton and Darwin, and inventions such as the internal combustion engine, pneumatic tires, jet engines, the telephone and antibiotics. It also boasts its 23 Nobel prizes in life sciences - more winners per capita than any country except the US.

(China Daily April 19, 2010)