Primary Research
Most of the information found online about Capitol was largely about its official history and the preservation records; there was a lack of information about how Capitol was used by the people of the past.
Hence, for our primary research, we reached out to people who would have patronised Capitol Theatre and its surrounding businesses in the past - our parents, family, and our parents' friends. Then, we contrasted the information with our own experience at Capitol today to derive a past-versus-present overview.
From our primary research, we found out that the old Capitol Theatre used to be the hangout spot for youth and young adults - people would go to the Capitol Theatre for movies, eat and shop in the mall next to it.
However, we also found out that in the 1970s, Capitol stopped being the number one destination for movie-goers. This is because the shops near Capitol did not accommodate to the youth, and there was a parking problem ever since the multi-storey carpark was torn down.
Thereafter, as new cinemas were built, youths started going to Lido or Cathay as it was more trendy, and people living in the heartlands would go to Princess Cinema or Odeon Katong.
However, all this information we had obtained from asking our primary sources, and we could find the facts or statistics to back this up. Most of the information online was very clinical and lacked a human perspective - perhaps reflective of the preservation process of Capitol.
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As part of the mapping process, we also headed down to Capitol to understand the layout of the new cluster of buildings. However, we found that the demarcation of the buildings was not clear and that the tenants themselves were not certain of where specifically the preserved Capitol Building was and how it differentiated from the newly-built Capitol Piazza.
To better understand the old Capitol, we also tried interviewing shop owners from the neighbouring Peninsula Shopping Centre, which has been around since prior to the restoration. However, we quickly realised that most of the shop owners could not remember much about the Capitol of the past.
Secondary Research
Since we were unable to accurately pinpoint the demarcation between Capitol Building, Capitol Theatre, and the other conserved buildings from our primary research and the mall directory at Capitol Piazza, we relied on online databases for our mapping process - which is elaborated on here.
As mentioned above, we also primarily found information about the official history online, specifically form NLB archives, articles dating back to the 1930s, and more recent articles and press releases for the new Capitol.
We also took to social media (Instagram, Facebook) and review platforms (TripAdvisor) to gather more opinions about the current Capitol. We thought that this allowed us to view how people truly perceived Capitol - as a "retro" spot, or as an "instagrammable" location.