Suburban, residential Villeneuve-d'Ascq is known for the LaM museum and sculpture park, with works by Modigliani and Klee, and the Musée du Terroir and Musée des Moulins, examining rural life in northern France. Pathways, meadows, and lakes in Parc du Héron are popular with picnicking families, college students, cyclists, and fishermen. The retractable-roof Pierre Mauroy Stadium hosts rugby and soccer matches.
An environmental R&D centre with numerous green spaces, Villeneuve-d'Ascq offers a wide range of places of cultural interest.
The Villeneuve-d'Ascq Museum of Modern Art features works by artists such as Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Fernand Léger and Joan Miró.
The Mill Museum explains all about wind- and watermills through the visit of a linseed oil mill and a flour mill.
In a 13-hectare park, the Open Air Museum groups together 20 traditional buildings that are good examples of rural architecture, including thatched cottages, workshops and barns.
The rural museum (Musée du Terroir), set in an 18th-century farm, looks at rural life of the past through an exhibition of antique everyday objects and room recreations.
