Maria Vidali studied architecture at Portsmouth and Kingston University. She holds an MPhil degree in History and Philosophy of Architecture from Cambridge University and a PhD, "Liminality, metaphor and place on the island of Tinos: the village of Kampos", from the University of Thessaly in Greece. Also she has been a research trainee at McGillUniversity with interest in Architecture and Narrative. Since 2006 she has lived permanently in Athens and since 2007 she runs her own practice Maria Vidali Architect.
Her research work: Village and Land, The outlying chapels of the island of Tinos was published as a bookin Greece, in 2009. She has taught at the Drury Centre in Greece, the flagship programme for Drury University of Missouri, Hammons School of Architecture extensive Study Abroad offerings. Since 2017 she has been teaching in CYA (College Year Athens, an educational institution based in Cambridge, Massachusetts) and in 2019, 2021 - 2022 she taught design and theory courses at the University of Thessaly, school of Architecture as well.

Research interests

Today, though we gravitate towards new contemporary sustainable ways of living, we search for things beyond the human way of life, beyond the complexity of architecture, we do not look for what connects us to social life, spatial qualities and the environment. Do students understand the relationship between contemporary or traditional life and the complexity of architecture, place and environment? Could students become equipped with tools to understand and interpret local traditions in modern life?
Narrative and fiction can become tools which equip students with a way of interpreting the local tradition and culture without responding to an architecture and a way of dwelling through form and fashion, but by revealing the social and ethical function of architecture as a substantial expression/reflection of the relation between architectural tradition, on the one hand, and people, places and the environment, on the other.