Le Corbusier had lots of great ideas... the problem was that he didn't seem to be able to think through the technical aspects, or to accept advice. He didn't think about what the wind through those open spaces between the towers would be like, or the fact that people tend to like complicated spaces where they can move between landmarks (like cafés). Similarly for his idea that appartments shouldn't have doors....
The Red Cross building in Paris had the the second glass skin, with the ventilation system moving heated or cooled air between the two: idea was you could adjust your own comfort by simply opening a window into the inter-skin space. Brilliant, except he didn't calculate how much power would be needed to adequately heat or cool and circulate the air that way... the system failed, people smashed out the glass so they could breath.
One of his buildings still survives near St Etienne, it has the rather nice innovation of having very large corridors so that they become "streets in the sky", large enough for kids to go out and play with the neighbours and so on. My architect friend met some of the inhabitants who really like it... but it was only partly occupied, was falling apart, it didn't suit a lot of people. The "machine for living" concept was based on a view of humans being willing to accept uniformity, that everyone's appartment was the same as everyone else's... and by extension, that they were themselves interchangeable.
Of course the implementation was also wrong: the French idea is to encourage "mixité sociale", so you have wealthier people who will attract small businesses that the poorer ones can use... like a village. However it was the period of de-colonisation of Algeria, huge numbers of people needed to be housed and so the "barres" were filled with poor immigrants. The ones who did well got out asap, so the problem became worse: the cités are a catastrophic problem for French society: on one hand many have been taken over by gangs, on the other they are symbols that are exploited by the extreme right. But it's very variable: the one directly across the road from me seems to work well, the one 200m behind and down the hill a bit has 50% of the windows broken, smashed furniture all around, and the road scarred from regular burning of stolen cars. I'm not easily spooked, I've wandered around Cape Town at night without feeling particularly troubled, but I'd hesitate to walk down there at night. No way I'd go with a DSLR in my hand...
