The estate Casa Forestal in Sant Martí d’Empúries is a three-storey house standing at the edge of the village, built in 1910 to house the technical staff of Servei Hidrològic i Forestal, a government agency overseeing the protection and development of water and forest resources.
Casa Forestal combines elements of Art Nouveau on its front facade and Art Deco on the side and back. It is the work of L’Escala architect Miquel Torres i Brugés, owned at the time by one of the engineers from Servei Hidrològic i Forestal, Josep Reig i Palau, whose initials can be seen in the ornaments decorating the back gallery.
Today, the construction of this or any other building in this specific spot, in Sant Martí d’Empúries, would be impossible as this is where precious evidence of ancient life is found underground. The Forestal estate, for example, stands atop the ruins of a fortification wall of a Greco-Roman settlement.
