What is not but could be if. Courtesy Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

The saga of the Hirshhorn Bubble that could save Washington, D.C. from “stagnation”, according to one Pulitzer winner, continues.

The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum board of trustees still can’t decide what to do about the Bubble after several years. “Some members of the board would like to proceed with the fundraising and others want to discontinue and focus on other museum priorities,” according to a Thursday press release. The next announcement will be made in June.

Washington City Paper reports that this decision not to make a decision led the museum’s director Richard Koshalek, who first conceived of the Bubble, to resign. A recent report commissioned by the Smithsonian showed that the Bubble would operate at a loss in each scenario examined.

In an alternate universe where money is no object, the 145-foot-tall Bubble would be inflated for two months every fall on top of the Hirshhorn.

The Post’s Philip Kennicott recently wrote that the Bubble is just what D.C. needs to break free of its stodgy reputation, dollars be damned:

Conceived by Hirshhorn Director Richard Koshalek, and designed by the most culturally attuned architecture firm in America, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the Hirshhorn Bubble would help transform the Mall, enliven the dead precincts of governmental Washington and force our political leaders to confront new ideas about art and culture that are circulating in the wider world but have few advocates and little impact here. It would be good for the Smithsonian, good for the District and good for America.