Michael Schindhelm compared the fast-growing Emirate Dubai with the former GDR. "It is just like when the Berlin Wall came down. Sometimes so much change is going on that the whole thing just grinds to a halt," said Schindhelm, who spent much of his academic life in East Germany, but then added that, "Nowadays if you go away for a couple of months, you can expect a completely new Dubai on your return."

The former General Director of Berlin's Opera Foundation can well remember the time he spent in newly reunified Berlin, where the new city center remained a huge building site until the end of the 1990s. Schindhelm noted that in Dubai there was a sense of new beginnings similar to that which he experienced in Berlin in the years immediately after reunification. The parallels stopped there, however, for in contrast to Eastern Germany in the 1990s, today's Dubai has a far more international outlook, is planning on a much larger scale, and it currently does not look as if the Emirate will ever run out of funds for cultural infrastructure projects, he said.

As Cultural Director of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, Schindhelm plays a significant role in shaping this new and rapidly developing Near Eastern cultural metropolis. For him, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are a "Future laboratory for international social and cultural exchange," particularly since more than 90 percent of Dubai's population is made up of foreign nationals. Schindhelm is convinced that Europe will use this chance to export its culture and also become culturally richer itself through dialog with those engaged in cultural production internationally.

Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid was equally as excited as Schindhelm about the opportunities for the future of culture in the Gulf, and she too was able to find parallels in her own experience, comparing the UAE today to "Beirut in the 1970s." Hadid enthusiastically recalled her studies in what was then an extremely cosmopolitan city, where she made the acquaintance of people from all over the world. From an artistic point of view, she found it particularly stimulating to jointly develop and put into practice ideas with her peers from Africa, India and the Near East, and a similar thing is happening in Dubai today, she said.

Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh has the same artistic vision for Abu Dhabi as Hadid, but the advisor to UAE President Sheikh Khalifa added a local aspect to the top architect's reflections. What Nusseibeh aspires to for Abu Dhabi's large-scale project, the Culture District on Saadiyat Island, is a "global exchange incorporating local cultural roots." The contributions of international artists should have a bearing on local cultural life just as they do on cultural dialog between West, Near East and Far East, she believes. Nusseibeh described the cultural projects on Saadiyat Island as a generation-spanning investment in art, in cultural diversity, and in training for the region's current and future labor force.

Thomas Krens, the Guggenheim Foundation's Senior Advisor for International Affairs, is involved in his own large-scale project on Saadiyat Island, helped by Nusseibeh. The former Director of the US museum empire has commissioned architect Frank Gehry to build a 42,000m2 exhibition complex, the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim. For Krens there is no question that an internationally active foundation needs to have a fairly sizeable presence in the Gulf.

Other big names in international culture are already planning to build or open satellites on Saadiyat Island, and it is likely that others will follow, attracted by the emerging infrastructure and the excellent opportunities for contact. Then Nusseibeh's master plan for a new cultural center in the Gulf will have become reality.

Iraqi-British architect, Pritzker Architecture Prize winner; planned the Opera House on the artificial island in the Dubai Creek; designed the BMW Central Building in Leipzig, Germany, among other notable structures.

Senior Advisor for International Affairs at the Guggenheim Foundation; responsible for the Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi; from 1988 to 2008 Director of the Guggenheim Foundation.

Vice Chairman of Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, Advisor for the Ministry of Presidential Affairs in the United Arabic Emirates; and President of the first Richard Wagner Society of the Arab World.

Writer, Theater Director, and trained quantum physicist; Cultural Director of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority since 2008; from 2004 to 2007 General Director of the Berlin Opera Foundation.