Because you can't move forward without looking back, here now is The Year That Was, wherein Curbed briefly and by no means exhaustively recaps important things that happened in the realms of real estate, interior design and decor, architecture, and shelter media. Month by month, here it goes: sayonara, 2011!
· Mega-director Michael Bay lists his sleek California contemporary.
· President Obama's Martha's Vineyard getaway hits the market.
· Target immortalizes Catalog Living's Gary and Elaine in an ad.
· Ikea's Billy bookshelf issues a statement on how books are not dead.
· An Australian Ikea tests out "Manland," a holding pen for bored male shoppers.
· Veranda opens the doors of its first-ever concept/show house.
· Architect Pierre Koenig's final commission hits the market.
· Halle Berry lists her pretty Canadian country house.
· Arch Record accuse Arch Daily of plagiarism.
· Chicago architect Jeanne Gang wins a MacArthur Genius Grant.
· First photo of rapper Ice Cube with an Eames House Bird released for a SoCal arts expo.
· Hammacher Schlemmer releases a two-story reindeer for the holidays.
· Couple offers $1,000 bar tab to the person who buys their $450K home.
· Listed: the midcentury "treehouse" of Heath Ledger.
· Jennifer Lopez buys a beach house in the Hamptons.
· Kartell releases a bunch of chairs inspired by Shakespeare.
· The New Yorker publishes an epic 12-page feature about Ikea.
· Michelle Obama guest stars on the season premiere of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
· Rupert Murdoch sells his mansion on Long Island's Gold Coast.
· Esquire announces locale for its Ultimate Bachelor Pad: Brooklyn's priciest apartment.
· Woman in South Carolina refuses to remove her Confederate flag from the yard.
· Hearst debuts HGTV Magazine with Sara Peterson at the helm.